At the top of Camino Apolena in Rio Rico, the wind blows almost constantly. Ruth and Jim Barry, who built their home on a double lot at the 3,900-foot summit in 2006, had a wind turbine installed Feb. 26.

When it gets going, the windmill makes a whooshing noise outside their bedroom window, Ruth Barry said. “We’re just glad we’re harnessing all this wind power.”

She’s a retired schoolteacher and her husband works as facilities manager at Carondelet Holy Cross Hospital, she said. Their 2,350 square-foot house is painted purple, but in virtually every way, it’s an energy-saving “green” home.

It’s built with insulated concrete forms (Styrofoam blocks filled with cement), Jim Barry said.

Rooftop panels collect solar energy to run the solar water heater in the garage. Downhill from the house, a large solar panel is mounted on the hillside.

“We’ve just about gone the gamut,” Ruth Barry said. “We’re looking at rainwater collection.

The couple drives a Chevrolet Cobalt that gets about 33 miles per gallon, she said.

The SkyStream 3.7 compact turbine cost $19,000, Ruth Barry said. UNS Electric (UniSource) rebated $6,000 and the IRS will rebate 30 percent off the remainder.

The solar panel, a two kilowatt per hour system, cost $18,000 and UniSource rebated about $4,000, she said. The couple received a $2,000 credit on their state taxes. Like the wind turbine, it’s connected to the electric power grid.

With the solar panel, their electric bill ran about half the cost of electricity in their former home, the castle-like house below their property, Ruth Barry said.

“We haven’t used any electricity for heat this year,” she said. Fans blow heat from the living room fireplace through the house.

“When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, we’re making about 22 kilowatt hours per day,” Jim Barry said.

Right now they use 300 to 500 kilowatt hours per month, he said. “That just about wipes out the electric bill.”

In the summer, using the air conditioning boosts their usage to 500 to 1,000 kilowatt hours per month, he said.

A UNS Electric customer who connects a wind turbine to the grid can qualify for a one-time rebate of $2,500 per kilowatt of the system’s capacity, said Joe Salkowski, a spokesman for UniSource. The customer receives a net meter that spins both ways.

“If your renewable energy system is generating more power than you are using at the moment, that excess energy will flow back into the grid and you will receive a credit,” Salkowski said.

Daniel Snyder, president of Westwind Solar Electric Inc. in Tucson, estimated that incentives from the electric utility company and tax credits could pay at least half the up-front cost to install a wind turbine or solar panel.

Snyder has installed three wind turbines in Sonoita and one in Canelo, he said. The Barrys’ turbine is the first he has mounted in western Santa Cruz County.