- A rooftop wind-turbine the size of a domestic satellite
dish is being hailed a breakthrough in the acrimonious debate over the
future of wind power.
-
- Designed and built in Scotland, the miniature turbines
have just been fitted to the first roofs in a pilot project which could
provide a personal electricity supply for every home on which they are
perched.
-
- The inventors hope to begin full-scale production by
the end of the year and hope to be making more than 3,000 a year by 2006.
For the first time, electrical power from renewable sources could be directly
installed to individual properties for £1,500 and produce enough
energy to run most off-peak appliances in the home and up to a third of
all power needs the rest of the time.
-
- Each unit could pay for itself in three to four years,
the inventors say. And with a 20-year guarantee from the manufacturers,
each turbine could provide householders with up to 16 years of free electricity.
-
- "This is a great breakthrough in the fight to reduce
greenhouse emissions," a spokesman for Friends of the Earth Scotland,
said. "We have always said the ideal way forward is to produce as
much power as close to the point of use as possible so it relieves pressure
on sensitive sites with the construction of wind farms and electricity
cables. Combined with solar power, better education on the use and waste
of energy, and more efficient appliances these turbines could be a real
step forward."
-
- The Swift Rooftop Wind Energy System, developed by the
Edinburgh company Renewable Devices Limited, supplies the power directly
into a home's individual existing mains supply. Each turbine is made up
of five two-metre rotor blades encased in an outer-rim, like a wagon wheel,
and it sits just 1.5 metres above the height of a house.
-
- "We have tried to design an aesthetically pleasing
turbine which is just a little bigger than a television satellite dish,"
said David Anderson, who set up the company two years ago with Charles
Silverton. "At present, planning permission is needed to put one up
but we hope that within a few months householders won't need permission
after agreement with planning authorities.
-
- "We are leading the field on rooftop turbines in
that we have overcome all the acoustic emission problems to design a silent
one. This is the world's first, silent, rooftop turbine. It will reduce
the need for larger-scale production because if people can generate electricity
on their roof they will require less from the national grid."
-
- But opponents of wind-energy schemes doubted whether
domestic turbines would substitute for vast wind farms spoiling the countryside.
-
- There are 200 wind farms working, under construction
or proposed, throughout Britain. The Government has set a target of producing
20 per cent of energy from wind power by 2020, and experts claim that to
meet this there will have to be at least five times that number.
-
- "[The miniature turbines] are hardly going to revolutionise
the domestic energy market," said David Bruce, chairman of Views of
Scotland, an umbrella organisation representing wind-farm protest groups.
"The machines have a nameplate rating of 1.5kW; on the rare occasions
that wind conditions were perfect, you would need two of them to boil a
kettle. For most of the time, they would produce about a fifth of that
amount.
-
- "Makers claim they will produce 4,200kW hours per
year; that's a higher-capacity factor than is claimed for mammoth turbines
(of two to 2,500 times the output) erected on 70-metre columns on prime
wind-sites."
-
- Many opponents of land wind-farm developments believe
large parts of Britain's booming wind-farm industry could disappoint investors.
Hugh Sharman, a leading British energy development consultant, said: "Wind
on a reasonably small scale could be useful but the scale envisaged by
the Government is bizarre. I believe a lot of these wind farms that are
springing up all over the country will turn out to be white elephants because
they are promising a level of production which won't be achieved.
-
- "The UK needs to pause before it rushes ahead with
these publicly mandated planning applications. They are making a mess of
a lot of beautiful places, and the logic is false."
-
- Mike Thornton, head of Energy Saving Trust Scotland,
said: "We expect small wind turbines to become an increasingly common
sight. Renewable energy doesn't have to be large scale."
-
- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=523735
|
