This item is available under a Creative Commons License for non-
commercial use only 2. ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY Electricity
generation from renewable sources of energy will be a key part
in the development of future strategies for many countries
globally. This renewable electricity generation will be hugely
important for Ireland, due to its lack of fossil fuel resources.
The extremely good wind resource available provides Ireland with
the opportunity of generating vast amount of electricity from
wind energy. Large-scale wind electricity generation reached
1264 MW installed capacity by January 2010 in Ireland. However,
micro scale wind electricity generation has not been very
popular in Ireland to-date. The unclear economics of micro wind
turbines, under Irish conditions, is considered the biggest
obstacle for expanding micro wind turbine installation in
Ireland. This paper presents a methodology to accurately
evaluate the economic viability of a micro wind turbine on a
case-by-case basis. The methodology ut