Making electricity from the wind at home

Some homes in the UK stand in open, windy places, often out in the countryside.

A small turbine can turn that wind into electricity for the house, and you can be paid for the spare electricity you send to the grid. How much it makes depends mostly on where it stands.

Two kinds of home turbine

A pole-mounted turbine stands on its own mast. People usually put one in a clear, open space with plenty of wind.

A building-mounted turbine is smaller and fixes to a roof or wall. The certification body MCS says turbines perform better on a hilltop or raised ground, away from trees and other buildings. It also says small wind suits remote places where a grid connection is costly.

Where turbines work well

The UK field trial of home turbines pointed to exposed farms as the places with real potential, using turbines on poles.

The Energy Saving Trust ran the trial from 2007, with the data analysed by the University of Southampton. The researchers picked the sites from a pool of 600 grant-funded turbines.

Building-mounted turbines performed very poorly, and some used more power than they made. None of the building-mounted turbines in the trial paid for itself within its expected life. Even on exposed rural sites, yields fell well short of the estimates from industry modelling tools.

Planning limits in England

In England, some home turbines count as permitted development, so no planning application is needed. Every limit must be met.

A building-mounted turbine qualifies only on a detached house or another detached building in its grounds. It can rise at most 3 metres above the roof and 15 metres overall. Its blades must stay at least 5 metres above the ground and 5 metres from any boundary.

A stand-alone turbine can be at most 11.1 metres tall. It must stand further from the boundary than its own height plus 10%. For both kinds, the blades can sweep no more than 3.8 square metres. Only the first turbine counts, and only if there is no air source heat pump at the property already.

These rights do not apply to listed buildings, scheduled monuments, national parks or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The rules in Wales may differ. The Planning Portal advises checking with your council before anything is installed.

Certified installers and building regulations

In England, the permitted development rights hold only when an MCS-certified installer fits an MCS-certified turbine. The installer is responsible for meeting the noise standards at the time of fitting.

MCS says you should receive your certificate within 10 working days of completion, along with a handover pack. Building regulations normally apply to a turbine fixed to the house. A turbine away from the house brings only its wiring and connection under the regulations.

Getting paid for spare electricity

The Smart Export Guarantee started on 1 January 2020. Under it, some electricity suppliers must pay small generators in Great Britain for the power they send to the grid. Wind turbines up to 5 megawatts can take part.