Wind Energy Basics offers a how-to for home-based wind applications, with advice on which wind turbines to choose and which to avoid. He guides wind-energy installers through considerations such as renewable investment strategies and gives cautionary tales of wind applications gone wrong. And for the activist, he suggests methods of prodding federal, state, and provincial governments to promote energy independence.

Wind power can realistically not only replace the lion’s share of oil-, coal-, and natural gas– fired electrical plants in the U.S., but also can add enough extra power capacity to allow for most of the cars in the nation to run on electricity. Gipe explains why such a startlingly straightforward solution is eminently doable and can be accomplished much sooner than previously thought—and will have the capacity to resuscitate small and regional economies.

Green Building Pro Staff Review
In this second edition of Wind Energy Basics, Paul Gipe provides even greater coverage of wind power in an easy and understandable way. Potential wind buyers and those interested in wind energy will take a lot away from this book. This time around, Gipe provides information on many of the current models of wind turbines in both the consumer and commercial markets through 2009. In addition to that, Gipe covers the small- and micro-wind system market for the reader interested in distributed generation, and the integration of photovoltaics for off-the-grid applications.

Those looking to find out more with regards to public policy and how to tie turbines into the grid will not go empty handed. With clear and concise details describing the net-metering process and how to sell excess electricity back to the local utility company, this is a wonderful primer for the reader that is not currently in the professional wind arena. In addition to information on American wind energy, Gipe brings in examples of the European wind industry, and provides proper comparisons between the two systems. In the end the reader will have a clearer picture of how to properly implement a wind-electric system and pull themselves off of the fossil fuel dependence we have today.