Farmer touts turbine in tour this weekend, Oct. 7
An article by Eric LaRose in the Sheboygan Press highlights on stop on the Solar Tour of Homes and Businesses, October 6 and 7:
Wind farmer takes dad’s example a step further
Wayne Bruggink of the Town of Sherman remembers when his father installed a windmill at the family farm in the 1940s to generate electricity.
“It was 32 volts,” said Bruggink, 70, adding it was enough to power the farm’s milk house and a refrigerator in the home. “My dad was always looking for ways to do things and move forward. I give him credit for that.”
Today, Bruggink still harnesses the wind for power — though now he has a 100-foot-tall wind turbine he installed three years ago that produces 10,000 watts of electricity a day.
Bruggink’s home is one of several on display in the Wisconsin Tour of Solar Buildings to be put on this weekend by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association.
The organization offers free tours of energy-efficient businesses Friday and homes on Saturday. No Sheboygan County businesses are on Friday’s tour. Along with Bruggink’s farm, the home of David Lagerman, who lives in the Town of Mitchell, are part of Saturday’s tour.
Katy Matthai, associate director of MREA, said the free tour provides an opportunity for the public to see energy-efficient homes and businesses that function daily using renewable-energy sources such as the wind and sun.
“The main reason we host the tour is to give people a real look at what it means to live with these technologies,” Matthai said. “The can see how easy it is and how they’re normal people—they have televisions and they don’t live in caves. It’s a great opportunity for the public to learn from real homeowners what this is like.”
There are two main reasons why people turn to using renewable energy sources and make their homes more energy efficient, Matthai said — to save money and have less of an impact on the environment.
“I think a lot of people want to tread lightly on the Earth,” Matthai said. “We’re realizing that we rely a lot on foreign fuels, and people are really starting to realize there are ways to think globally and act locally. And this is the perfect opportunity to do that.”
Bruggink paid $10,000 for his wind turbine and installed an $8,000 power inverter, which converts the electricity from DC to AC so it can be used and he has lowered his WeEnergies electric bills by about $120 a month. The turbine is tied into WeEnergies’ power grid. Bruggink does all the maintenance on the turbine himself and had his son, a master electrician, install the inverter.
Bruggink, who also has a heat recovery system for the water in his milk house that has lowered his electrical bills by almost $500 a year, also received a state renewable energy grant for $12,600.
In four years, Bruggink said, the wind turbine will have paid for itself.
“And some people thought I was crazy to put it up,” Bruggink said, adding he has already looked into installing a 200-foot-tall wind turbine that would generate 900,000 watts a day.
Lagerman, 65, designed and built his home on county Highway U in 1986, which has energy-efficient appliances, uses wood for heat and uses solar power to heat its air and water and provide electricity.
“We have an array of what are called photovoltaic panels on the roof that make, on an annual basis, about a third of what we use annually,” Lagerman said. “Generally speaking though, the house is super-insulated. Efficiency comes first. It’s much easier to save energy than it is to make it.”
While Lagerman’s goal was to make his home more efficient, he has also saved some money along the way.
“Our electrical meter does run backwards on a bright day like today,” Lagerman said Tuesday. “I would say probably that the household has a fossil energy footprint that is maybe between a third and a quarter of an average household. What that translates to in dollars is much more difficult to say, but it’s probably $2,000 to $3,000 a year.”
Lagerman said some people are able to make money by selling leftover produced electricity back to the electric company. But Lagerman also said for his home, it would take 53 years to make back his investment.
“In monetary terms, it doesn’t pay,” Lagerman said. “But in terms of taking responsibility for the planet, and for the future of all of us on the planet, it does make sense.”
Matthai said there are a number of state and federal incentives for home and business owners who turn to renewable energies, but because of the costs and zoning restrictions involved, people still need to be educated before they decide to convert their home.
“Not everybody can put a wind system on their home,” Matthai said. “It’s a matter of what you’re willing to do and what steps you can take.”
