Wind – when the wind blows…. we could be generating our own energy…
We’re looking into a Gaia 11kw wind turbine for the big cow field. It’ll need planning permission of course – and wind. But the databases put us safely inside the ‘doable’ range of wind speeds. We reckon, very roughly, that we (and the business) use about 28,000 kWh a year, and that a 18m high (to the centre of the blades) turbine might produce about 31,000 kWh a year.
It wouldn’t get rid of our entire electricity bill though. Here’s how it works. You get paid 23p per kWh ‘feed in tarrif’ (from April 2010) whether or not you use the juice – but on a still day we’d still be drawing power from the National Grid, and paying for it.
At first I thought this meant there was no incentive for being frugal – just turn up the heating when it’s windy – which seemed a shame. But thinking about it, it would make us much more aware of our Energy use patterns, trying not to exceed our own generating capacity and therefore incurring a bill, especially as it’s not going to be windy all the time.
I know there are lots of voices against wind power, but we have to throw everything we’ve got at cutting our fossil energy use – renewables, energy efficiencey, maybe even nuclear though I hate the thought. Personally, I think they are very elegant, unlike pylons, which no-body ever seems to raise an eyebrow about.
I think David Attenborough had it right when he spoke at the public enquiry into a wind turbine for Glyndebourne opera house in Sussex last year: “there’s always a good reason for somebody else to do something else somewhere else.”
Well, we’ve had the full site survey (from Greenthinking, a Devon firm). Now we have to do the maths and think about taking the leap. It will be a big investment with an unknown pay-back time.
But I would love to have a wind turbine…