Last week, former President George H. W. Bush installed a 33-foot tall, Skystream 3.7 wind turbine to provide energy for the Bush’s Kennebunkport home. The Bushes were courted by Southwest Windpower, one of the forerunners in small-wind innovation, and after looking at the pros and cons, they decided to take the plunge. The turbine is connected to the grid and feeds excess power to the system.
Since the home is their summer home, it will probably have a substantial credit from all the energy they’re feeding into the system during the winter. The Bushes decided to purchase the turbine for financial and environmental reasons, but they’re also setting a good example, too. Via Portland Press Herald.
Image Credit: Jack Milton.
Connecting the dots between mind, body, and green
Beginning while I was a student at the sustainability focused MBA program Presidio School of Management, and on into…
If Google is good with GREEN Energy; I guess George Sr. Is also.
Hey, I’m just wondering when President George HW Bush’s Skystream 3.7 fails will he still be waiting a month later for Southwest Wind Power to fix it?
On the morning of December 1, 2007 two months after it’s installation, our Skystream 3.7 shut itself down and would no longer restart. For the complete story of what has happened go to my website http://www.joshuajanes.com and click the podcast to take a listen. It’s a bit long, but I wanted to get the entire story out so far.
For the short explanation, the Skystream 3.7 broke after only 2 months use and Southwest Wind Power has done nothing to remedy the problem for over a month now. We contacted them immediately and told them that we had some good news and some bad news. Good news was that This Old House Magazine had just done an interview earlier that month on residential power with us. The bad news was our Skystream broke this morning. We quickly got an email from David Calley who told us he is the CTO of Southwest Wind Power, and gave us his number to contact him. I did and he had tech support call us shortly after speaking with him. We took this as a good omen, we were wrong. Tech support told us that the guts of the turbine would need replaced and they would ship out parts immediately.
Now over a month later the Skystream is still broken and we have heard nothing from Southwest Wind Power and our dealer is still waiting on the parts. We truly believed that Southwest would overnight the parts to our dealer and they would have us running again in a week. I have emailed David Calley twice since my first contact with him and have heard no response.
I’m am recommending to anyone that I spoke to in the past to look into the Skystream 3.7, to wait and see how this plays out for me. Do not spend the large amount of money and effort fighting zoning for something that will not bring you electricity, but will bring you ridicule.
I have been a huge supporter of this product, but with it failing after only two months and the total lack of support and customer service from Southwest Wind Power, I can no long tell people to purchase this product.
We currently have invested $15,000 in a lawn ornament.
Please contact Southwest Wind Power at [email protected]energy.comand let them know what you think.
I’d be pleased to receive any advise you might have.
I have also posted a podcast with the complete story at http://www.joshuajanes.com
Thanks,
Josh
http://www.joshuajanes.com
Southwest has contacted me and is currently correcting the problem. Check my site in the future for how everything is going.
Josh
we produce and sell wind turbine : http://www.worldwindturbine.com
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