Whilst I sympathise with Anne Sinclaire's letter, the practicalities are against small turbines.
Firstly, a turbine needs a steady wind - and this is the last thing you get around houses, where the wind eddies and dies and stops a small turbine from working well.
Secondly, the diameter of the blades is key. A small turbine with a diameter of 5m (still quite big) might produce up to 5kw whereas one that is only 50% bigger can produce twice that (Energy Savings Trust).
The really big turbines can produce 10,000 - 12,000kw.
Given the scale of the energy challenge we face - we need to decarbonise almost 80% the fuel we use - it seems sensible to go for fewer, really large turbines.
We could halve the size of each turbine but then we would need to build four or five times as many. I'd rather see a dozen impressive big turbines around Stroud than fifty or sixty rather mediocre big ones...
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