By Eric Phillips, August 18, 2006
A Honolulu entrepreneur is preparing to market a new “urban” windmill that can be installed on residential and business rooftops and — assuming the trade winds blow — slice a huge chunk off utility bills.
But don’t mistake Richard Figliuzzi’s PacWind SeaHawk for those wooden monoliths chugging around and around in Holland. For starters, its blades rotate vertically instead of horizontally and it weighs only about 140 pounds. The turbines spin no matter what direction the wind blows, and it has to be only about 20 feet off the ground to be effective (most similarly sized windmills need about 40 feet).
The price tag is $5,000 for the residential version — larger industrial windmills will run about $35,000. But if the wind is blowing all day long at 10 miles per hour — a little less than Honolulu’s average — it could transfer about 2,400 watts into batteries, which is almost half of what an average household in Hawaii uses per day.
“Ideally, it will pay for itself in about five to eight years, and it’s designed to last about 20 years,” said Figliuzzi, who has exclusive distribution rights for the windmill in Hawaii. “Pessimists will say a lot longer, but with the highest energy costs in the country, the payback will be a lot quicker here in Hawaii.”
Combine with solar power
Nevertheless, Figliuzzi recommends that people combine the windmill with a rooftop solar power system. Such a setup would cost about $25,000.
“It’s usually either windy or sunny in Hawaii,” said Figliuzzi, who also is the director of several local nonprofit renewable energy organizations. “If a small business had both, it probably wouldn’t have an electric bill at all. And if a small home had both, they could potentially sell their power back to [Hawaiian Electric Co.] at retail value.”
Figliuzzi will begin making his windmill available to Hawaii residents and businesses on Sept. 21 when he launches Energy Management Group, a consulting firm that will advise clients on how to cut their energy bills by using its “alternative energy” products such as the SeaHawk.
He says he’s still trying to figure out how best to utilize Hawaii’s new tax credits — Act 240 gives about 20 percent back to buyers of wind-energy products. He also says he’s not completely clear on what is allowed in terms of zoning.
In general, cities and individual neighborhoods in Hawaii don’t allow edifices so high that would land in a neighbor’s property should they fall. As for whether neighborhood boards would welcome a white cylinder poking out of their skyline, Figliuzzi expects some opposition.
“I’m sure there will be people who object to the way this looks,” he said. “But there’s going to come a time — and at almost 100 bucks a barrel [of oil] it’s going to be soon — that the need to produce power is going to outweigh any aesthetic concerns.”
Figliuzzi says he has at least four customers lined up to buy his windmill, including Ken Selvidge, who owns Mi Casa Taqueria, a Mexican restaurant on Monsarrat Avenue.
“My restaurant’s electric bill is over $1,000 a month,” Selvidge told PBN. “I’m up for any kind of renewable energy source.”
Figliuzzi says he’d like to install his product for someone such as Selvidge to demonstrate to the city, HECO and Hawaii residents that his product will work in an urban area. Most importantly, he says, people need to realize how silent the windmill is.
“And it doesn’t kill birds,” he said. “They [birds] see it as a solid object so they know to veer out of its way unlike other windmills.”
Some aren’t convinced
Not everyone is convinced that the urban windmill is viable. Louis Valenta, a manager at Inter-Island Solar Supply, which has been selling similarly sized windmills to rural Hawaii residents for more than 15 years, says vertical-axis windmills such as Figliuzzi’s have had bearing problems in the past.
“I’d never install something like that on a roof,” he said. “Anything that spins that fast [1,200 revolutions per minute] can get out of balance real quick and do a lot of damage.”
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