A report has found that some home wind turbines may be generating just 41 watt hours per day of electricity and in some cases may use more electricity than they create. This is not enough energy to light a standard lightbulb for 60 minutes or the turbine itself.
The study funded by the British Wind Energy Association and the UK government reviewed turbines created by five manufacturers. It looked at the performance of the wind turbines in 4 rural, 12 urban and 10 suburban sites over a period of twelve months.
The average wind turbine was found to provide enough electricity to power a reasonably energy efficient house.
Alex Murley, the BWEA's micro-generation expert, believes the study and report were unfair to the technology with many site offering poor wind and not enough variance in the sites chosen for the tests.
The most recent BWEA figures suggest around 1,000 small turbines have been installed in the Britain up to the end of 2007.
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