The Energy Saving Trust recently undertook a field trail of domestic wind turbines. As a result of this comprehensive survey potential customers should be aware of the following key points before choosing to install a turbine:
-
wind turbines do work but only when installed in an appropriate location
-
there is potential for delivering carbon savings and energy generation from domestic wind turbines in the UK
-
electicity generation from wind turbines now attracts a series of tariffs (through the FITs or clean energy cash-back scheme) for sizes up to 5MW.
-
wind speeds are difficult to predict and highly variable. It is recomended that customers utilise the best available wind speed estimation tools (one of which can be found on the Energy Saving Trust web-site) and then, where appropriate, install anemometry for accurate results.
-
customers are advised to consider only wind products acredited through the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) and installed by MCS approved installers. Non-MCS installations will not attract generation tariffs.
