Half a million suitable wind turbine sites in the UK

October 08, 2009

A study carried out by the Energy Saving Trust (EST) has suggested that more than 800,000 UK homes could be powered by clean electricity.

In total 3.1% of the UK’s energy demand from homes could be supplied by small scale wind projects in domestic projects.

It has identified that there are 450,000 suitable locations to site turbines across the UK. The report however has advised  that houses in dense urban areas are poor sites for turbines.

In order for the UK to cut its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 it has to source 15% of its energy from renewable sources like wind turbines. Currently around a quarter of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions are produced by energy use in the home. The
government is keen to reduce this figure by improving energy efficiency within homes.

The study carried out by the EST is the first of its kind. For a year turbines from 500W to 6kW were monitored in 57 different urban and rural locations around the UK.

Exposed sites in rural Scotland gave the best results. These were from pole mounted turbines which had clean air and unobstructed air flow. These site generated in excess of 18,000 kWh and saving 7,500kg of carbon dioxide a year.