I Get My Electricity from a Wind Turbine: A Case Study

Kenny and Isobel live in a remote part of Scotland near Forres and are in a windswept coastal area, where being blown around is a fact of life. “We love the air up here, the freshness, the scenery and the sea – but it does have its down sides,” says Isobel.

One of problems created by their remoteness is that they are not able to access electricity from the national grid. “Our house stands alone and the cost of running the cabling to bring electricity to us would be enormous,” explains Kenny.

Looking at Alternative Power Sources

Both Kenny and Isobel are keen on protecting the environment and on living as sustainably as possible. They don’t take any plane flights, make rare trips in their car, grow their own vegetables as far as possible and have a well insulated home. But because they need an oil fired system to support their heating, lighting and all their electricity needs, their heating bills as well as their carbon footprint is quite high.

To solve the power problem and to reduce their carbon footprint, they looked into wind power as a possibility a few years ago, but really got nowhere. “Then just 18 months ago I came across a web article about having a wind turbine and how these are now available for remote locations such as ours,” says Kenny.

There were two main options, both of which were viable bearing in mind the average wind speed of their location. The most expensive was to have an independently mounted turbine someway from the house – the other was to have a roof mounted turbine, which was only about a fifth of the price.

Two Roof Turbines

“We actually decided to go for two roof turbines in the end, as this was still less than the cost of the smallest independent wind turbine. As we have no neighbours, there was no one to object and the turbines actually balance quite well, as we have one at each end of the house. They don’t look unsightly at all,” says Isobel.

The turbines are connected to a storage system so that excess power generated during particularly windy spells can be stored for use on still days. During the first six months, Kenny and Isobel found that they actually produced all the power for the heating, lighting and electricity needs, making their oil system rather redundant.

Feeding the Excess Back to the National Grid

Although for Kenny and Isobel this was not an option, because they aren’t connected to the national grid, some householders in remote locations have set up similar systems and their excess is now used to supply the national electricity generation system – with a payback for the householders. “The thought of using our power to help make electricity generation greener for the country as a whole is quite attractive – and it would be nice to have the small income but we are happy with what we have managed to achieve,” concludes Kenny.

A Success Story

In fact, Kenny and Isobel have made some money out of their venture – a popular lifestyle magazine recently featured their home and fairly unique power generation system – and paid them a small royalty for doing so. “They were particularly impressed that we have now built a polytunnel and greenhouse that are both heated in the winter by the excess power that the turbines produce – so our natural power source is helping us become more self-sufficient in other ways too,” laughs Isobel.