Solar or Wind? (Maricopa: HOA, home, tax)

[eglionz]

Hello, My fiance and I live in rural Maricopa and with our next round of tax refunds and bonuses at the year end we want to invest in either a solar or wind system for our home. I know people have a lot of success with solar in AZ, but does anyone have experience with a small residential wind turbine? We are not bound by an HOA and have a couple acres so the appearance of the turbine is not an issue for us (some of them are quite sleek looking anyhow). Thanks!

[snowthedirtbub]

I would think solar would work better in Arizona.

[rambrush]

Wind will create power at night or under cloudy conditions. But you have to have a decent wind all the time to make things work.
Are you grid tied and thinking of combining or just totally off the grid?
Solar panels on the other hand get dirty birds do things on them and need to stay pretty clean but over all they seem to be the best bet for most people.
APS and others offer decent breaks in picking up a portion of the expense.

[eglionz]

We are grid tied and would stay on-grid. Thank you for the replies, I hadn't even thought about having to keep the panels clean. We do have quite a few birds out here and they tend to gravitate toward our home (probably a good source of water and food for them ^^).

[w1ngzer0]

Solar if you are in the South.
Wind if you are in the North.

The valley gets very minimal wind and gusts at best. Northern Arizona is very windy and can get up to or higher than 60 MPH windy. Though they have their sunny days, it is not as much as the valley.

[snowthedirtbub]

I say go crazy and do a combination of the two! I'm talking crazy and I love it!