U.K. Small-Scale Wind-Power Turbine Installs May Double in 2008

By Nicholas Larkin

Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. installations of small-scale wind-power turbines may more than double this year as the government aims to meet renewable-energy targets and as consumers face rising electricity costs, an industry group said.

Private turbine installs may reach 7,844, compared with 3,459 in 2007, the British Wind Energy Association said yesterday in a report, using projections from manufacturers. The number of installs last year in Europe's windiest country climbed 80 percent from 2006, it said.

Britain is seeking as much as 35 percent of its electricity from ``green'' sources by 2020, according to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. European governments want to increase alternative-energy production to curb greenhouse gas emissions, blamed by scientists for climate change.

The U.K.'s six biggest energy suppliers haves raised household bills twice this year, as wholesale fuel costs reached records. U.K. electricity for the six months ending March 2009 traded at a record 99.10 pounds ($181.77) a megawatt-hour yesterday, according to broker GFI Group Inc.

The increase in installations is being driven by technology improvements and the ``realization that there are huge savings to be made by deploying small turbines,'' the BWEA said in the report, adding that more than 13,000 units may be set up in 2009.

So-called micro-generation is production from units with a capacity of as much as 1.5 kilowatts and small wind systems are those with a capacity of up to 50 kilowatts. The generators can be freestanding or mounted to walls or roofs of buildings.

Renewables Obligation

The U.K. government said in June it's proposing to modify the country's Renewables Obligation, which requires suppliers to sell a rising portion of alternative energy. The obligation increased renewable generation to about 4.4 percent of power supplies in 2006 from 2 percent in 2001. The government may raise or abolish a cap on the mechanism and make payments for longer.

Other measures proposed in June include so-called feed-in tariffs for domestic generators, which provide fixed prices for power produced in homes and small businesses.

As many as 3 million generators using solar or wind energy to produce electricity may be installed by 2020 with government support, consultant Element Energy Ltd. said in June. That would reduce losses during transmission and cut emissions of carbon dioxide. There are fewer than 100,000 in the country so far, it said at the time.

A typical coal-fired power station in the U.K. has a capacity of about 500 megawatts. A megawatt is a thousand kilowatts.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Larkin in London at nlarkin1@bloomberg.net