The UK's Best Sites for Micro Wind Turbines

A new study has been carried out which assesses the best domestic sites in the UK for micro wind turbines.  

Micro wind turbines, it said, have the potential to supply the electricity needs of over 800,000 homes in the UK, a statement which contrasted with similar historical studies that have intimated that small-scale wind power technologies would not be viable within a residential context.

The new report intimated that highly populated urban areas remained unsuitable for wind energy generation, but highlighted no less than 450,000 UK-wide sites that would be suitable for these technologies to be installed.  At present, there are approximately 2,000 micro wind turbines in use in the UK. 

Overall, micro wind technologies have the potential to generate sufficient power for just over three per cent of the UK’s home electricity needs.

Domestic Environmentally Friendly Technologies

The UK’s CO2 reduction commitment currently stands at 80 per cent (below 1990 levels) by the middle of this century.  The UK has also pledged to be drawing 15 per cent of its energy from renewable energy sources by 2020.  With this in mind, the British government is encouraging households to integrate domestic environmentally friendly technologies into their home set-ups.

“If the government is going to achieve the 80% carbon targets, particularly for the domestic sector, retrofit insulation isn't going to cut it”, the EST’s business development head and the author of the report, Simon Green, stated, adding: “You're going to have to invest in lower-carbon energy generation.”

Wind Power in the UK

The new study on wind power in the UK was carried out by the EST (the Energy Saving Trust), and looked across the UK in terms of sites that could host micro-wind turbines, analysing them in regards to whether these technologies could make a difference to homeowners or not.  Post-study, it is now encouraging households to check its website, which highlights whether introducing a wind turbine could drive down their electricity bills or not.

In all, 57 UK-wide sites were looked at and, in these areas, two principal types of wind turbine were trialled:  free-standing turbines and building-mounted turbines.  These covered a range of capacities from 500 watts right up to six kilowatts.

“Generally, pole-mounted in areas of good, clean air with unobstructed air flow gave better than expected performance”, Green explained.   The optimum areas for wind energy generation were in Scotland where, in some locations, the EST calculated residents could have wind power generate over £2,000 in electricity each year, as well as stop 7,500 kilograms of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere.

Urban Wind Turbines

At the other end of the scale, building-mounted urban wind turbines could only provide little over £25.00 a year, on average.  “It wasn't because the turbines themselves were bad, it was because of the wind resource was too poor – they're very sensitive to local turbulence and obstruction”, Green explained.

The EST collaborated on the study with multiple power firms, the University of Southampton and the Department for Energy and Climate Change.  It is expected that similar studies will follow, focusing on other types of renewable energy sources like solar power, again within a domestic context.