Tory leader David Cameron and former energy minister Brian Wilson are among those to have installed windmills on their roofs amid the green energy revolution, although Cameron’s device came from another supplier.

A spokesman at insolvency practitioners Martin Aitken in Glasgow said: “The company (Windsave) has been wound up and an interim liquidator has been appointed.”

The Court of Session approved an order for the compulsory wind-up last Friday, but yesterday Windsave’s website was still open for business, citing a roll-call of awards won by the company and its founder Glasgow-born David Gordon, 63, described as “a serial entrepreneur with an acute social conscience”.

Gordon, who was bankrupted in the 1980s in what he says was a patent war, bounced back to invent a steel shuttering system for empty council properties, which netted him £2.5m, and a smart-box for public sector housing, which made him another £10m. He ploughed £1.4m into the launch of Windsave in 2003 and has pulled off a string of publicity coups including the installing of his roof wind turbine by Wilson, a consultant to the company.

At the launch six years ago, Gordon promised the device would “bring green energy to the masses”. Wilson, who declares his paid consultancy in the House of Commons register and has no financial share, said: “I have looked at it upside down and sideways for a catch and I don’t think there is one. The amazing thing is its affordability.”

Windsave sourced its turbine blades from Denmark, turbines from Italy and electronics from a US company in China, though the units were assembled in Livingston.

In 2004, the company said it had hit its first-year £10m sales target in three months and Gordon said “if a million turbines were in use it would contribute 1% of the Scottish executive’s target to get 40% of the nation’s energy from renewable sources by 2010”.

In 2006, Gordon promised a £10m flotation on the Alternative Investment Market, which did not materialise, though he did tie up distribution deals for the 1.75-metre turbine with British Gas, in a pilot scheme, and B&Q, which retailed it at £1500. A more powerful version was later added at £1750.

Scottish & Southern Energy, meanwhile, took a stake in a rival company Renewable Devices and its bigger 2-metre turbine Swift, as competitive pressures emerged. Cameron’s 1.1-metre windmill was made by Eclectic Energy.

However, doubts over the effectiveness of roof systems began to surface, with one expert claiming they would be likely to produce barely 10% of the average household’s energy needs because of low wind speeds. Gordon said the minimum saving would be £60 a year and promised “a payback period for householders of four to five years, depending on wind speeds”.

In 2007, Gordon announced plans to launch a new generation of turbines, twice as powerful, at a retail cost of about £2500, and said he expected an AIM flotation within a year with a £100m value. But in May 2008, Gordon admitted installations had “been consistently low for some time”, and blamed planning and bureaucracy worries.

The venture received a blow when in a test of the £1500 Windsave turbine, consumer group Which? found that in a six-month period it used more electricity than it generated, saying: “We can’t recommend any domestic wind turbine if you live in a built-up environment.” Windsave said Which? ignored its advice that the tester’s house was not in a windy-enough area.

In March this year, Gordon reported a “breakthrough” in negotiations with three local authorities in England interested in wind turbine power for lights on rural roads and motorways – and similar talks in the US – which could create 50 jobs in Livingston.

He also reported the business’s biggest-ever contract, a £19m deal to provide turbines for homes in new townships on the outskirts of Cape Town, which would create a further 100 jobs in Scotland.

Windsave has gone into liquidation