Many people are looking at ways to green up their homes – from water reuse and reduction of electricity consumption through to solar panels. Wind turbines are a popular idea however they may not be as great as the marketing blurb would like you to think.

Wind turbines often aren’t particularly effective when used in a residential situation.

- Firstly, buildings cause turbulence and wind turbines dislike turbulence. Wind turbines much prefer smooth flows of air. Unfortunately, buildings redirect wind causing small eddies and different streams and this can lead to a confused turbine that doesn’t perform brilliantly even when the wind is fairly strong.

- Home wind turbines can be very noisy and can actually cause vibrations. Part of the noise and the vibrations comes from the actual wind turbine however the wind turbines can also help create oscillations and resonance in the building they are standing on.

- If you live in a relatively built up area, other buildings may act as wind breaks so your wind turbine may not get as much wind as it should and therefore cannot perform well.

All these factors mean that wind turbines are actually not terribly efficient with some producing only 5% of predicted performance. On paper, wind turbines for the home may look great but with poor performance, other renewable energy sources such as solar panels are usually the better bet. Coupled with the fact that it can be expensive to actually mount the wind turbine, it may actually not be the top green solution you were looking for.

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