On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 14:21:22 +0000, Zoinks
wrote:

All,
Wandering around the local shed today I notice that they have started
doing wind turbines for £1500 inc. installation and VAT.

The bumf says the following:

1) The turbine generates (up to) 1kW
2) It will save me (up to) 30% of my electricity bill
3) Planning permission is (probably) not needed - it equates it with a
satellite dish.
4) The UK Government will (probably) stump up 30% of the cost.
5) It will pay for itself in (around) 7-12 years.

Any thoughts?

Z.

This has been covered extensively before with some useful facts and
figers see
http://tinyurl.com/y9locd
best to start from about post 60
but to sum up
the advertising blurb from Windsave is wildly optimistic and possibly
even deceitful.
you would need to average over 6ms windspeed for most of the year for
this to be even remotely financially worthwhile.

Only extremely exposed coastal or hill top sites would be able to
achieve this, fine if like me you live in a ex lighthouse-radar
station overlooking the north sea

, but on the side of a urban house below ridge height as in the
Windsave picture it would never even repay its purchase price over 12
years.

Dan