"What we're saying is that since we all use electricity, we have a shared responsibility, and the biggest thing we can do personally is to change where we get the electricity from," he says. "To do that takes care of Britain's biggest contribution to climate change, and it's very simple. We do all the work - we contact the electricity company, we send you a letter giving you a start date - and probably within four weeks, you'll be our customer. We all stay connected to the national grid; that gives us the reliability. We put our power into the grid, and everyone takes it out. We can't direct our electrons straight to your house, but we put electrons in, and you take some out."

Vince says wind-turbine technology and design has improved so much in the past 15 years that it is now practical to think of supplying all of the United Kingdom's electricity via renewable-energy sources. He believes a great majority of the needed electricity could be supplied by wind, and some could also come from wave and tidal power. He says the new generation of wind turbines, like the one installed at Green Park in Reading, produces energy much more efficiently than earlier machines, which has allowed the cost of wind-generated electricity to come down substantially.

Others have made the argument for sustainable electricity, but Vince has been unusually successful at turning this concept into a thriving business. He has covered a lot of ground since 1990, when he built his first small wind turbine in order to power his cell phone and recharge the batteries he used for lights. He was ahead of the curve in preaching the need for expanded use of renewable-energy sources, but now public opinion has caught up.