We are still here, just waiting for the Windsave users to tell us how much money they are saving with their green toy.

We have a Windsave turbine here in Cromer on the coastal road, and it spins around the yaw bearing almost as much as the blades go round, and the tail wags like a happy puppy. It’s on a garage, which is probalby the safest place out of its box you can put one.

The reason Windsave will not correct these faults is the same as why we haven’t seen a house save 30% of its electricity bill yet; the whole Windsave system is so cheap, that prolonged generating in a high wind would cut the life of it to almost a few weeks. This is why the company will not sell it as a battery charging system. If they did that, then people in, say, the Falkland islands or Orkney would buy them and burn them out in a couple of months.

To think Gordon the Incredible Sulk Brown is still giving money to people buying these crappy things. What a way to spend the country’s money on renewable energy.

And has anyone noticed the the new Windsay 1200 is really the Windsave 1000 without its rate wind speed published? It has the same size blades on the same size generator, with only the cut off windspeed, which is higher than the rated wind speed, being published. I really think there is a case of mis-selling to be answered here. It costs about £500 more - some of that will be your taxes.

I was particularly interested in Audrey’s comment of 9 Jan 07 and your reply to that post. I have been taking anemometer readings at the top of my block of flats for a couple of weeks now (a site strongly recommended as “ideal” by the Windsave survey man). It is roughly 15m high, some way higher than any neighbouring buildings/trees etc., clear facing views in every direction and particularly the South West, with a solid brick “shed” on top to mount a potential turbine - the anemometer is currently attached to it, recording roughly 1m or so above the top.

The readings indicate that the windspeed varies between 0 and 14m/s, frequently over 5m/s on certain days although very rarely averaging over 5m/s over any 10 minute interval. Does this wide variation indicate the gusting and/or turbulence that is referred to by detractors here (or am I conflating two dinstinct issues)? If this is indicative of turbulent wind, is it in fact a problem for horizontal axis machines - you state on your post re VAWTs that “While it’s true that vertical axis wind turbines can capture energy from the wind in any direction, this is less of an issue in reality than you might think.” In any case, the readings do seem too low to bother putting an expensive, dysfunctional turbine up.

Based on feedback on this blog, there seem to be plenty of reasons not to buy a Windsave even if there is such a thing as a suitable urban location for it: cheap materials prone to breaking down, unresponsive company etc. It also seems reasonable to infer that any alternative roof-mounted horizontal axis devices - if any is even available in the UK - is unlikely to be any better in any sub-/urban location (I find it hard to believe there would be many better sites than where I live). And VAWTs don’t seem to cut the mustard either for reasons of poor efficiency. In summary, there really is no suitable urban roof-mounted location for any device, and is unlikely to be: is that a fair appraisal?

Best form of domestic renewable energy is solar hot water I think.

Cheers, Clive