Steadily rising energy costs are fuelling technological advances which are prompting home owners and businesses to seriously consider alternative ways of generating their power needs.

One potential solution is wind power, but despite the UK being Europe’s windiest area, this form of energy has never really become accessible for the average home owner and commercial wind turbines are often regarded as noisy, inefficient blots on the landscape.

The Government also seems to be sceptical. Just last month, energy minister John Hayes said there were enough wind farms in the pipeline and that he had commissioned research into factors such as their impact on house prices.

Against this background, Anakata Wind Power Resources is preparing to launch its first wind turbines onto the market.

Founder and managing director Ben Wood and his colleagues have drawn on years of experience as aerodynamics and materials engineers with Formula 1 teams including Super Aguri at Leafield and Brawn GP at Brackley to develop what Mr Wood describes as the world’s most powerful small-scale wind turbine.

The size of a dustbin lid, featuring a novel ‘cut out’ design, the turbine uses patented accelerator technology which increases the wind speed as it hits the rotor to significantly improve the power output while a built-in wind tracker enables the turbine to react to changes of wind direction and gusting.

Former Abingdon School pupil Mr Wood, 42, said: “The principle behind our design is that power output is cubically proportional to wind speed, and so even small increases in wind speed can make a really significant difference in the power you can potentially generate.

“The challenge we set ourselves was to design and build a turbine that could accelerate the wind as it met the rotor, effectively bringing the wind to the turbine. Our solution is an efficient turbine that should make energy generation from wind power more economically viable.”

The team also worked out that by designing a turbine with a cowling they could give it the additional benefit of a near silent operation, making it suitable for urban settings as well as more remote areas.

And unlike the free spinning blades of traditional turbines, the shrouded design is more visible to birds and bats, greatly reducing the risk of them flying into it. Mesh can be placed around the moving parts to discourage any unwanted interaction with wildlife.

Anakata has currently created two versions of the wind turbine — a small version, about the size of a satellite dish, is designed for home and leisure use and would typically be used as a practical, off-grid source of energy to power lighting and fridges in barns and home offices, or batteries for boats and yachts, as it can generate up to 700 watts of power.

That is about 25 per cent of the energy needs of an average home in the UK and should represent a significant saving in the long-term as energy prices continue to soar.

If all goes to plan, the first batch of turbines will be available to purchase from the company’s website by Christmas and such is the demand that many have already been pre-sold across Europe. They will cost about £1,200.

A larger version for home and community use costing about £3,500 is in development. It uses the same principles and retains the neat, cost-effective design of the smaller version but can generate up to 1,850 watts.

It is plugged into the electricity network allowing any excess power generated to be sold to the National Grid at a profit.

This turbine is being trialled at Hill Farm, Steventon, as well as sites in Germany and Italy.

Mr Wood believes the turbines could also be used effectively in the developing world.

In India, more than 300 million people are not connected to an electricity grid and one small turbine could power a whole household.

He said: “It is exciting to consider this technology may also bring power to communities where low cost electricity supplies could revolutionise the lives of thousands of people.

“It is for people like us to make products cheaper and better so these countries are not at the mercy of the of the energy companies.”

Anakata started up at the Oxford Centre for Innovation in New Road, Oxford and is expanding into former Oxford Instruments premises at Osney Mead for its assembly line operations which are designed to scale up for production of larger turbines in due course.

Mr Wood is looking to boost his four-strong team with a further two workers as he goes into production backed by £700,000 of investment from business angels. The company has also launched a £2m funding round.

“We wanted to create a technology that would be a viable answer to the issue of low cost clean energy, a much needed restoration of consumers’ faith in the power of wind energy and a means to power individual homes and small communities in the UK and globally,” Mr Wood added.