Some good news for the British wind industry, and also the Department of Energy and Climate Change; in 2011 Great Britain installed more small wind generation capacity than the US, and that trend is expected to continue in 2012.
Since the introduction of the FiT program in 2010, small wind capacity has increased by about 50% with 23 megwatts being installed in 2011, compared to the US's 19 megawatts. Overall wind capacity is still much lower in Great Britain than in the US or China, but the FiT program has only be running for a couple of years, whereas their programs have been around for a couple of decades.
The British FiT program was designed to encourage microgeneration and small scale installations. The utilites pay a fixed tariff to companies who generate electricity from small wind installations, and then earn profits when they sell the electricity onto the homeowners.
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More