How long does it take wind farms to pay off the mortgage?

According to ‘Blowin’ In The Wind,’ (news article in the Oct. 6 issue of the London Free Press), not as long as a typical factory farm that produces more deadly greenhouse gas than you’d want to suck into your lungs for a week.

The world’s largest offshore wind farm in the North Sea (91 turbines) cost $690 million and will generate “enough electricity to supply 200,000 homes a year.”

Now, Pat and I pay London Hydro over $120 per month ($1,440 yearly) but not all of that is for electricity, so let’s just say we pay $600 per year for hydro.

Take 200,000 average folks like us (family of two, 5 clotheslines, 1,050 sq. ft. cottage), do some complicated mathematical equations - and voila. We’d pay $120,000,000 for hydro per year and pay off the farm in less than 6 years. Not bad at all.


Keep in mind, offshore farms cost almost twice as much to build, maintenance costs are more expensive (“Jimmy, toss me that number 30 spanner. Whoops, missed. Shyte. That was my last one”) and some of the families in those 200,000 homes might require more hydro - and subsequently pay more - than little old Pat and I.

We can debate the pros and cons of turbines forever, but I think we could pay down onshore turbine farms pretty darn quick.

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Plus, wouldn’t there be fewer health risks compared to coal-fired or nuclear energy plants?

And wouldn’t the jobs created by building turbines be healthier for men and women than digging and shipping coal?

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