Pole-mounted horizontal axis micro-wind turbines: UK field trial findings and market size assessment

• Published in: Energy policy Vol. 39; no. 6; pp. 3822 - 3831
• Main Authors: Sissons, M.F., James, P.A.B., Bradford, J., Myers, L.E., Bahaj, A.S., Anwar, A., Green, S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-06-2011; Elsevier
• Series: Energy Policy
• Subjects: Agricultural areas; Applied sciences; Economic data; Electric energy; Energy; Energy economics; Energy planning; Exact sciences and technology; Experiments; farms; Feed in tariffs; field experimentation; General, economic and professional studies; Government policy; Mapping; Market structure; markets; Microwind; Microwind Policy Feed in tariffs; monitoring; Natural energy; Policy; prediction; Renewable energy sources; tariffs; United Kingdom; Wind energy; wind power; wind speed; wind turbines; United Kingdom; Europe; Policy; Microwind; Feed in tariffs; Small scale; Wind velocity; Wind generator; Market penetration; Forecasting; Horizontal axis; Case study; Wind energy; Electricity; Production capacity; Electric power production; Performance
• ISSN: 0301-4215; 1873-6777; 1873-6777
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.04.012

This paper discusses the key findings of the pole-mounted turbine (2.5–6
kWp) component of the UK micro-wind trial. The real world performance of horizontal axis turbines is compared with yield estimates based on site wind speed prediction. The distribution of UK agricultural farms is overlaid with wind resource mapping to estimate the number of potential agricultural farm sites for micro-wind. The yield performance of turbines during the monitoring period was observed to be very close to that predicted by NOABL–MCS wind speed estimates. Based on an installation criterion of a maximum 12 year payback time, with a 6% discount rate and micro-generation feed in tariffs available, there are ∼87,000 farm sites for micro-wind in the UK. If 10% of these farms were to install micro-wind turbines (to a capacity of 48
kWp per farm) this would correspond to a capacity of 418
MWp, with an annual generation yield of 1025
GWh, comparable to that of a large, on shore wind farm in the UK. It should be noted that the feed in tariff considered in this paper is that available in the UK in 2011, which, at 26.7
p/kWh (∼30 Euro cents/kWh) represents a significant subsidy.
► Estimated 87,000 agricultural farm sites which are economic for pole mounted micro-wind in the UK. ► Good agreement between NOABL–MCS yield prediction and site measurements for UK pole mounted turbines. ► Pole mounted micro-wind has favourable economics under current UK feed in tariffs.