He grew familiar with the need for sustainability in building design – and then intimately acquainted with it, when he decided to build an eco-home, complete with turbine, ground-source heat pump, solar panels and rainwater recovery systems, on the site of a former farmstead at Harwood in the Lancashire Pennines.
The realization of a wind turbine as a source of clean, non-polluting and renewable energy may depend on the optimum design of turbine blades that can operate efficiently under extreme variations in wind conditions.
These include solar photovoltaics (solar panels), wind turbines, and ground source and air source heat pumps.
But they have found that they do not get enough wind to make turbines a reliable source of power.
He also disavows his party's hostility to wind turbines (a rare source of good jobs in the area).
Instead of financing "giant wind turbines" — a power source he has long criticized — "I'd much rather spend that money on energy research".
Solar thermal panels, community-based combined heat and power plants running on carbon-neutral wood chips, micro wind turbines and ground source heat pumps mean that local districts won't need all their power from today's centralised power stations.
David Cameron is considering whether to go into the general election promising new restrictions on onshore windfarms as influential Tories launch an attempt to rid the countryside of turbines, a senior source close to the prime minister said.
Xcel Energy, Minnesota's largest utility, buys the electricity under contract for three to four cents a kilowatt-hour, not much more than the cost of power generated by gas-fired turbines, the current source of choice for utilities seeking new capacity.
With the government's drive towards zero-carbon housing by 2016, the environmental credentials of a "fabric first" approach are key (in contrast to a traditional house, to which solar panels, wind turbines and air source heat pumps are added later).
