What Would Dorothy Say To Wind Power ?
So I visited BWEA29 last week to see what was happening in the world of wind turbines. I have to say I came away thinking about the PC market and multi-media computers in the late 1990s - a solution looking for an application. Why ? Well when you get down to it we have here an industry in the UK which seems to be built on the fact that we have more ‘free wind’ than any other country in Europe. The market is in fact heavily subsidised, the payback periods too long for any serious investor and the industry, like so many power-related ones, lacks a critical break through in energy storage. Couple this to the fact that the output from a wind turbine does not yield the quantities of electricity required outside a wind farm, cannot provide support during a national grid power failure, and you get an idea of the magnitude of the problems this industry faces. I am sure it is emerging as an industry - of that there can be no question - but as yet it is only on a large scale. Even here the price paid to wind turbine farms for what they pump into the national grid is heavily subsidised.
As a marketeer what really struck me about this show was the lack of small innovators. There were lots of consultancies represented but in terms of actual technology and spin-off (excuse the phrase) small-scale hardware or software applications, the industry seems sadly lacking. I was there on the morning of day 2. As the coffee arrived and the caterers prepared for lunch it came as no surprise to see that even some of the smaller exhibitors had decided to leave their stands.
This is a large-scale capital industry. So what about the domestic or small-holder environment ? Have the products really moved on from the ones we saw as kids on Kansas barns in the Wizard of Oz ? Well yes but not down to the size and power output required for a domestic environment. Check out Halus Power Systems - if they ever remake the film I am sure Halus products will be somewhere on the farm.
