Why home wind power won’t work
Home micro wind turbines are rubbish
…and here is the evidence - all the data you could ever need
B&Q takes wind turbines off shelves
A range of turbines have been withdrawn from sale after a recent study revealed they do not work as effectively as first thought.
The £1,900 micro-turbines, which went on sale across the DIY chain B&Q’s 320 stores in October 2006, claimed to generate 1kw of electricity, when wired directly into a main ring, reducing the amount of power a household would need to buy.
However, the results of a study known as the Warwick Wind Trials published last month by energy consultants Encraft warned that the home turbines generated only a fraction of the energy promised by manufacturers and, in some cases, actually used more electricity than they produced.
Home wind turbines dealt a blow
The energy from some micro power equipment would not operate a lightbulb, says official study. Home wind turbines are significantly under performing and in the worst cases generating less than the electricity needed to power a single light bulb, according to the biggest study of its kind carried out in Britain.
Nice page from CAT’s Info Department:
A turbine mounted on a roof will be operating in a very turbulent airstream, which will seriously limit the amount of energy it can generate. Also, small wind turbines need to be mounted well above surrounding obstacles to receive strong, consistent winds
Read more…Download CAT’s free information sheet on domestic wind power - PDF
Two very good “rants” on Windsave:
BBC Panorama documentary
Short clip from a Panorama documentary detailing that the average U.K households have only a six meters per second wind speed, B&Q are selling us something that will save us £10 annually for a £1500 outlay.
In it a Windsave man does a terrible job of trying to tell us why they are still good, despite the company’s enormous backpedaling:
