9 minutes ago, arcticbuicks said:I remember when nearly every farm in America had a windmill.....it wasn't a big successful farm without a windmill.old pictures and paintings always included the windmill....my grandparents ....before electricity came ,had a generator 36 volts option for the windmill with a row of glass batteries in house and sears sold appliances 36 volt ....it also ran the general store ,post office and gas station biz they had from it .
Systems like this still exist within the " off grid " movement. But they do tend to be very expensive on a killowatt hour basis compared to standard electrical grid pricing. Also most households consume far more power these days than when a simple windmill generator / battery bank system was sufficient. And wind in many locations is quite variable. Gusty one day, than quite calm for a week or two.
Lots of those windmills actually powered water pumps. But windchargers were very popular in many places as well. If nothing else it brought radio to remote farms .