Micro Wind Turbine Viability depends on CER Response

Most renewable energy systems have their expertise well developed in other countries. The wind farm turbines are cornered by Denmark, Germany and Spain, solar PV by China, USA, Spain and Germany. There are three renewable sectors in which Ireland could be a pre-eminent player; micro wind, wave and tidal power.

If we are to develop a micro-wind industry in Ireland, we need a favourable tariff in our home market so we can build and sell turbines to ourselves first, and for export second. For that reason, we have made a submission to CER calling for the proposed 9c feed-in tariff for microgenerators to be raised.

Even with the proposed ESB feed-in tariff of just 9c per KwHr, domestic wind turbines will be viable on good sites. You can get the power curve for a turbine and plot it on a calculator which will give you the annual output per annum. For a typical 2.5kw turbine on a site with a mean windspeed of 7m/sec, you will get about 7,850 KwHrs of power per year. Assuming you use half of that yourself, saving 16c and sell the other half to the grid for 9c, that will save you €980 per year.

If your turbine cost you €11,500 to install, the payback time will be 12 years. If your turbine cost €20K, that rises to over 20 years.

Of course, if electricity prices go up during that 12 year or 20 year period (and I’m pretty sure they will) then that payback time will come down. Your tower and foundation have a life of about 60 years, a turbine should last indefinitely but may need new blades after 10 years, and bearings after 20.

However, if your mean wind speed is 6m/sec, the payback time for a turbine costing €11,500 will rise to 16 years, and for a €20,000 turbine, to 27 years.

This is why our response to the Commissioner for Energy Regulation calls for a higher feed-in tariff. If we are going to get an industry moving in this area, it would be a great help to have a feed-in tariff similar to that in Northern Ireland. You can read our submission to the CER by clicking here.

Needless to say, we’ll have a post here when we get a response… In the meantime, the following quote from Hugh Piggott of Scoraig (who runs excellent courses on how to build your own wind turbine).

Why should it necessarily compete against cheap power from polluting engines? …The satisfaction of generating your own power, independently, from a clean endless source, is hard to quantify