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

• Published in: Energy policy Vol. 39; no. 6; p. 3822
• Main Authors: Sissons, M F, James, PAB, Bradford, J, Myers, LE, Bahaj, A S, Anwar, A, Green, S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Science Ltd 01-06-2011
• Subjects: Agricultural production; Electricity generation; Energy policy; Estimates; Farming; Farms; Horizontal; Studies; Tariffs; Turbines; Wind farms; Wind speed; United Kingdom > UK; British Isles
• ISSN: 0301-4215; 1873-6777

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. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]