From what I've read, you need a fairly large (and very tall) turbine for it to make any financial sense. Small scale turbines just aren't great based on my understanding

Posted by: @alan_w

I'm looking for some information on the pros & cons and costs for small scale (domestic scale) wind turbines, particularly wrt other forms of renewable electricity such as PV. I live in a rural area within South Devon, and have two fields adjacent to the house that could be suitable for PV cells and/or a small wind turbine. There's a lot of info available about PV, the costs and the benefits are well established. The main downside is obviously the lack of winter sun, so generation is lowest at precisely the time of year when most electricity of probably consumed. On the face of it, a small wind turbine would provide a more even production profile over the year, but there's a dearth of information on them online (I haven't been able to find much, at any rate).

Hi Alan,

Welcome to the forum.

I sent the following information to Mars recently, which you may find of interest.

You may wish to have a look at Tesup wind turbines, which claim are manufactured in Europe.

Their Atlas 2.0 (2kW) or Magnum 5 (5kW) may meet your requirements.

Obviously they only produced the rated output with wind speeds of 35 m.p.h. and above, and only start generating at wind speeds of 6 m.p.h.

Wind turbines require planning permission, though I would not think that you would have much difficulty obtaining it.

Before spending money on a wind turbine it may be useful to spend a few pounds on an anemometer, so that you can measure the wind speed at suitable sites around your property. I have seen one advertised for about £15 or so.

 

@alan_w, welcome to the forums. Wind turbines are a winter research project for me, and I’ll be posting updates here. Derek’s advice about the anemometer is spot on. Knowing your average wind strength will help you connect the financial dots. 

I also need to dig through my emails because I was sent a link about small, lightweight domestic turbines that micro produce power which could be interesting.

Thanks, all. The reason I started considering wind as an option is because there's a property not far away from where I live that has a small/medium sized wind turbine (similar in size to the 6kW turbines in the attached photo, which I screen captured from a BBC online story on off-grid power on the island of Eigg on the west coast of Scotland). The property close to me is at a slightly higher elevation than my fields, but not by much. Its probably worth me going to introduce myself to them to see what information I can glean.

I have some PV cells on the roof of my house, but they're not ideally situated due to shading for a significant amount of time. I've considered moving them, but I'm advised that it would be more cost effective to just add more cells in part of one of our fields. Rather than dive into this, I thought I'd look into wind turbines as well. I realise that for most people this is not an option, but as our fields are potentially suitable I thought I'd investigate it.

Alan 

@alan_w 

Please share any useful information.

If you want to get your head around Wind Power & Turbines, I would really advise buying & reading "Wind Energy for the Rest of Us: A Comprehensive Guide to Wind Power and How to Use It" by Paul Gipe. Reading that will save you so much time, effort & money - & will give you an instant primer on what you should, & more importantly shouldn't do. I got the Kindle edition from Amazon because it was much cheaper than the hardback, but it was worth its weight in gold.

@derek-m, will do.

Alan

Thanks Justin, I'll check it out.

Alan 

Very interested to follow this thread, I "googled" Domestic Turbines and the TESUP turbines turned up which @derek-m mentioned earlier.   I have a Solaredge array which has been operating nicely until the neighbouring bungalow was demolished last year and a very tall imposing building erected (one meter from the boundary) which blocks out all my South facing and best generating panels (their house trumps my bungalow!).    I cant see any benefit to getting the now defunct panels moved as it would cost too much, so I thought about a mini-DIY turbine which I can simply plug-in to bring my self-generation back to where it was or better.   I am at an elevation of 60M with a wide open double plot with access to the winter winds from all directions.  With the install of the ASHP the loss of a significant proportion of my solar generation is very painful on the electricity bill.

Posted by: @saf1973

Very interested to follow this thread, I "googled" Domestic Turbines and the TESUP turbines turned up which @derek-m mentioned earlier.   I have a Solaredge array which has been operating nicely until the neighbouring bungalow was demolished last year and a very tall imposing building erected (one meter from the boundary) which blocks out all my South facing and best generating panels (their house trumps my bungalow!).    I cant see any benefit to getting the now defunct panels moved as it would cost too much, so I thought about a mini-DIY turbine which I can simply plug-in to bring my self-generation back to where it was or better.   I am at an elevation of 60M with a wide open double plot with access to the winter winds from all directions.  With the install of the ASHP the loss of a significant proportion of my solar generation is very painful on the electricity bill.

Hi Saf1973,

Since your neighbour has stolen your sunlight, you could ask them to mount your panels on their roof as recompense. 😎 

With regard to wind turbines I only know what I have read. First of all you require planning permission to be able to install one. The output follows an exponential curve, so is much higher at high wind speeds and none existent below about 5 mph.

@derek-m - good point re the neighbours roof as they aren't using it for panels themselves! I could write another thread about the whole planning permission objection but that's for another day.

The Atlas 2.0 looks interesting, producing 2KW at just 16mph, 30min DIY installation at £1350. I'm thinking if its not physically attached to the house but is placed in the back garden it would not need planning permission and it could even be wheeled in and out every Autumn to Spring and put away in summer when the remaining Solar boost should be enough to produce DHW without the need for much ASHP workload.

At a generation of 2KW at just 16mph it wouldnt need to be roof mounted, my garden is exposed enough to obtain that when the wind blows in winter
but i will get a anemometer or something on the smart home circuit which i could use to assess. Defo something new on my list to assess.