Residential wind turbines – do they make sense?

There has been a lot of interest in residential wind turbines recently.  More and more of us would like to generate our own electricity to help save the planet and to cut electricity bills.  But does small-scale wind power really make sense?

Escalating concern for planet earth and a strong desire to spend less each month make good reasons for wanting to generate your own green energy.  However, there are so many different ways, and so much conflicting information around it can be difficult to decide on a course of action.

• Environment The idea of burning precious fossil fuels to make electricity seems like a reckless waste of resources, when there are other alternatives available. There are certainly concerns with the main low-carbon alternative – nuclear power. And there are not enough rivers which can be dammed to produce sufficient hydroelectric power except in a few lucky places on earth. But surely it musty be possible to produce enough electricity to survive on without filling the atmosphere with Carbon Dioxide (CO₂).
• Cost When there is so much economic misery around the world, there will always be an interest in trying to save money. Using some of the world’s free resources which don’t produce any pollution like the sun and the wind seem like attractive options.
• Security The world can be a pretty scary place sometimes. And with many of the remaining fossil fuel reserves being in inaccessible or unfriendly places, it seems impossible to guarantee that the lights will stay on all the time.

Given these concerns, it is clear why so many people are interested in going ‘off grid’ or maybe just generating enough electricity to cut their bills, reduce their CO₂ emissions, and have a backup system if the worst happens.

In practice this means that there are just three options for most people:

I would love to live in an old water mill, and convert it to produce electricity instead of milling grain. Sadly I don’t live in such a wonderful place (as they tend to be quite expensive), and many other people suffer from the same cash shortfall. If you are lucky enough to have a stream running through your garden, this has to be the best, least conspicuous and most environmentally friendly way of going off grid. Oh well, one day…

You can now buy solar panels which look like roofing tiles, and you could cover your roof with them. They tend to be quite expensive for the amount of electricity that they produce, but in many places you can get significant grants towards the costs. Also, in built-up areas, it is unlikely that you will have enough space to build a wind turbine which is not being blocked by other buildings and which is not upsetting your neighbours, so this may be your only practical option.

There are many critics of residential wind turbines, and sometimes for good reasons. They are not suited to every environment. In heavily built-up areas you are unlikely to be allowed to build one, and even if you did, the presence of so many other buildings is likely to reduce the actual amount of electricity that you can produce, regardless of what the average wind speed maps say. But equally, in a less suburban place they make more sense.

Don’t be put off by the anti-wind farm propaganda either. It is true that large-scale wind farms don’t produce electricity all of the time, so there needs to be some back-up capacity. But this problem is greatly over-exaggerated. The wind rarely drops across the whole country at the same time, and when it does it can be forecast (so you don’t need to keep the coal-fired power station on permanent tick-over just in case).

Part of the problem with large-scale wind farms is the difficulty of storing large amounts of electricity. The technology does not exist to store 10MWh of electricity, and if it did the batteries would be HUGE. On a domestic scale, this is not a problem, as conventional batteries are more than capable of storing the amount of electricity likely to be used in a day. A typical car battery can store the equivalent of more than 1kWh of electricity. A household typically uses around 5kWh – 10 kWh per day, so you don’t need a huge battery bank to store enough for a home.

Domestic wind turbines have certainly had their share of bad publicity. In February 2009 one of the largest DIY store chains in the UK withdrew its range of wind turbines after what the company called 'many months of customer feedback'. The root cause was that most of the turbines which it had supplied had been installed in urban areas, so the amount of electricity produced was much lower than expected. The anti-wind turbine brigade use this example to try and say that small scale wind power doesn't work. In fact, all it shows is that wind turbines should be placed in the correct environment. Ideally in more rural areas, where the wind is less obstructed by buildings.

When placed correctly it is estimated that the average wind turbine reduces the electricity bill of the householder by between 50% and 90%. Domestic wind turbines certainly aren't dead yet!

Residential wind turbines DO make sense – if they are in the right setting. In heavily built-up areas, you are more likely to be able to generate your own electricity using solar panels. But in more rural areas a wind generator has potential to make a larger impact on your electricity bills and cut your carbon footprint.