Latest News

1ST TURBINE IS BUILT AT MILLOUR HILL

The first Siemens 3MW Direct Drive wind turbine has been built onshore in the UK at our Millour Hill Community Windfarm.

30th Jan 2012

Turbine deliveries were completed last week and with the cold, calm weather, the construction contractors and Siemens engineers have been busy erecting the turbines, with the 2nd turbine due to be finished imminently. The remaining turbines will be built during the coming few weeks.

WIND POWER PASSES THE SIX GIGAWATT THRESHOLD

RenewableUK, the trade association representing the renewable energy industries, announced on Wednesday that the country’s wind sector has reached a landmark 6 gigawatts of installed capacity – enough to supply electricity to 3,354,893 homes.

RenewableUK’s Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery said: “This is a landmark achievement. There’s a great feeling of pride throughout the industry that we’ve reached a record high of 6 gigawatts, and there’s a further 19.5GW of capacity under construction, consented, or in planning.

The Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP. The Chief Secretary said: “This is a significant milestone for the wind industry which demonstrates the increasingly important role that renewable energy is playing in the UK’s energy mix.

“Working together, we can reach even greater heights. We are eager to ensure that the UK becomes the natural home for the most innovative, ambitious and inspiring renewable energy companies in the world, and we will continue to work with the industry to drive down costs and encourage even stronger growth in the years to come”.

The government’s renewable energy roadmap has called for 31GW of onshore and offshore wind combined by 2020, reaffirming their ambitions for a greener Britain.

The Chairman of Scottish Renewables, Jeremy Sainsbury said: “It is clear that with Scotland’s 2020 target of generating the equivalent of 100 per cent of our electricity needs from renewables that we will continue to play a significant part in delivering capacity across the UK”.

16/01/2012

CLIMATE AND LAND USE CHANGE TO AFFECT MALARIA SPREAD IN TROPICAL AFRICA

A recent study has projected changes in the spread of malaria caused by climate change and climate variability in. It concludes that the risk of malaria epidemics is likely to shift from the north to the south of the Sahel, and to highland areas previously free of the disease.

The researchers integrated weather and disease models to assess the risk of malaria in tropical Africa under a range of future climate scenarios up to 2050. The impact of greenhouse gas emissions on temperature and rainfall and fine-scale land use changes were linked to malaria transmission and infection rates.

The risk of malarial epidemics is expected to shift southwards and is likely to increase in areas that are currently more densely populated.

Across the Greater Horn of Africa, significantly increased temperatures and a small increase in rainfall is projected to cause a marked increase of malaria infection across large parts of East Africa. Malaria is likely to spread to higher altitudes in the highland areas, including areas above 2000 m that were previously free of the disease and will turn into epidemic malaria regions.

Over the coming years with further changes in climate expected, it is thought that the distribution of diseases such as malaria will be effected and malaria seasonality might be significantly altered.

To read the research article please CLICK HERE     

09/01/2012

WIND FARMS HIT HIGH OF MORE THAN 12% OF UK ELECTRICITY DEMAND

RenewableUK, the trade association for the wind, wave & tidal industry, has praised National Grid’s handling of the large volumes of electricity generated by wind farms over the festive season.

Wind power supplied an average of 5.3% of the UK’s demand for electricity for December and early blustery January, reaching a record share of 12.2% on 28^th December. The higher electricity generation produced from exceptionally high windspeeds over December and early January resulted in carbon emissions from the UK’s electricity generators being cut by over 750,000 tonnes, equivalent to taking over 300,000 cars off the road.

National Grid is responsible for balancing the output of the UK’s electricity generators with demand from consumers and businesses on a minute by minute basis. Renewable UK have praised National Grid for their balancing of the grid system in the exceptionally high wind speeds during the festive season. Integrating the variable output of wind generators involves taking a range of balancing actions, including reducing the rate at which fossil fuel generators consume fuel when wind output is higher.

Last year, National Grid launched a new wind power forecasting system, allowing their engineers to more accurately predict output from the UK’s growing fleet of wind farms.

Dr Gordon Edge, RenewableUK’s Director of Policy, said “Wind energy represents a new paradigm in electricity generation, allowing us to harness the power of the weather when it’s available, cutting our fossil fuel bills and lowering our carbon emissions. As we’re generating increasingly large amounts of electricity from wind, feeding those large volumes of power into the system  represents an engineering challenge to the National Grid – a challenge we are pleased to see they met over Christmas.

Wind has been the world's fastest growing renewable energy source for the last seven years, and this trend is expected to continue with falling costs of wind energy and the urgent international need to tackle CO2 emissionstoprevent climate change. The National grid are working alongside the wind industry to ensure this clean, green power is harnessed as effectively as possible and have proven in this turbulent winter that they are up to the challenge.

To read the full article please CLICK HERE

WIND GENERATES SUBSTANTIALLY MORE ELECTRICITY

03/01/2012

RenewableUK, the country’s largest renewable energy trade association, have given their analysis of the statistics for the third quarter of 2011 released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. These figures show that renewable sources generated 9 per cent of the UK’s electricity from July to September. That represents an increase of nearly 1 per cent on the same quarter last year.

DECC highlighted the fact that the amount of electricity generated from offshore wind has increased “substantially” compared to the same quarter in 2010, partly because of increased capacity, and partly because it was the windiest September for at least ten years.

When the overall figures for the first three quarters of 2011 (Jan - Sept) are taken into account, the statistics show a 64% increase in the amount of electricity generated by offshore wind on the same three quarters for last year (up from 4865 gigawatt hours to 6618GWh), and a 36% increase for onshore wind (up from 1943 GWh to 3189 GWh).

Dr Gordan Edge, RenewableUK’s Director of Policy, said: “This is another strong set of statistics from DECC, proving that despite the anti-wind propaganda being spouted by lobbyists with their own particular agendas, wind turbines are continuing to generate increasingly large amounts of electricity for the UK’s households.

The UK now has enough installed capacity to supply more than 3,300,000 homes from wind energy.

Scotland 'setting example' at UN climate change summit

06/12/2011

The Scottish Parliament's climate change legislation requires a 42% reduction in emissions by the end of the decade. The Scottish Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson was speaking this week ahead of this year's UN climate change conference in Durban.

The recent developments in renewables in Scotland are a shining example of how countries could cut carbon emissions and create jobs through the development of renewable energy. Stevenson explained; "We've set the world's most ambitious targets and we're a developed country showing that we can live with this agenda while creating new, green jobs.

The minister went on to say; "There's a model there for many countries around the world that we can discuss and we can show examples of good practice from Scotland. We know from our previous engagement that does influence people in other countries."

Scotland’s ambitious energy targets have been met with some scepticism, however Tom Ballantine of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland explained: "Unlike other areas of the UK, the Scottish government has recognised that creating a low carbon Scotland can go hand-in-hand with creating jobs and helping our economy grow”. This rare growth is what countries taking part in this year's UN climate change conference will be interested in replicating in these coming years.

To read the full BBC article please CLICK HERE

Climate Change Could Cause Pacific Islands to 'Disappear'

28/11/2011

Future Climate Change impacts have been predicted to cause the disappearance of the Pacific Islands within the next 20 years. Australia’s, Pacific Climate Change Science Program, has studied 15 countries which are most likely to be affected by the consequences of increasing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. As sea levels rise, these low lying islands will be some of the first countries to feel the full impact of Climate Change. Further predictions of increased rainfall, extreme high temperatures and severe tropical cyclones will also have disastrous consequences for these fragile communities.

Although the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has called for global GHG emissionstopeak within this decade, 2010 levels have broken records, being the highest in history. A limit of 2⁰C global temperature rise is close to being passed, which would result in escalating Climate Change impacts for future generations.

With China destined to produce as much CO2 between 2010 and 2035 as the US, EU and Japan combined; the battle to achieve global cohesion moves another step forward at Durban’s Climate Change Conference. With much still to be done, developing countries like Costa Rica, the Maldives and Samoa plan to go carbon neutral, leading the way for others to follow. With increasing oil prices, this approach makes economical and environmental sense, meaning that countries which are likely to feel the greatest impact are the first to fully commit to tackling this global challenge.Full article in The Daily Telegraph (26/11/11)

EU Wind Power Makes Step to a 30% EU Emissions Cut Possible

21/11/2011

European wind power production will meet a massive 31% of the emissions reduction required by the current EU climate target. 

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) published a new report revealing that by 2020, the EU wind industry would avoid 342 million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to 31% of the EU's target of reducing emissions by 20%. If emissions avoided by other renewable electricity technologies are included, the equivalent of almost half (48%) of the EU's target of reducing emissions by 20% is avoided.

In Brussels the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, Martin Lidegaard, reacted to the published report, referring to the "impressive figures in the report which show how much we can achieve in the next ten years".

The data backs up an earlier report from the EEA showing that both the crisis and renewables have been the main drivers for emissions reductions in recent years. It comes at an appropriate time, as the European Parliament is discussing the 2050 low carbon roadmap presented by the European Commission in February and is actively considering including a demand to increase the legally binding renewable energy target after 2020.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL REPORT

RENEWABLE INDUSTRY SLAMS FLAWED KPMG ENERGY REPORT

7/11/2011

Flawed energy report "Thinking About The Affordable" due to be published by the accountants KPMG on Tuesday has been heavily criticized by the UK’s largest renewable energy trade association, Renewable UK.

The report has been described by Renewable UK as ‘misleading’ for incorrectly claiming that Britain can meet its 2020 carbon reduction targets by building nuclear and gas-fired power stations and stating that  employing these forms of energy would be cheaper than relying on renewable energy sources such as wind.   

The KPMG report makes the assumption that a large number of nuclear plants can be deployed in the coming decade despite industry expectations that the technical and planning approval process for these projects is expected to be vastly drawn out. In fact, it is thought that no more than two nuclear power stations will be commissioned before the end of the decade.

RenewableUK Communications Director Charles Anglin said: “The recent rises in electricity bills have been caused by the global increase in the price of gas, not by renewables. DECC’s own Annual Report on Fuel Poverty, clearly states that between 2004 and 2009, "domestic electricity prices increased by over 75%, while gas prices increased by over 122% over the same period", while the cost of generating electricity from wind, according to Ofgem, is less than £10 per year per household, or less than 1% of the average household fuel bill. So relying heavily on gas will not drive fuel bills down in the future.”

To read the rest of this article please CLICK HERE

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO AIR TRAFFIC FEARS

31/10/2011

Thousands of wind turbines have been held up in the planning system due to fears that wind turbines in motion can mimic the spinning blades of jets, this can cause issues and confusion on air traffic controller’s radar screens.

This problem resulted in over 2,500 wind turbines being refused planning permission in recent years due to air traffic concerns.

However, a new technology has recently been developed which solves this problem by using a more sensitive radar that can differentiate between wind turbines and airplanes. The data is fed back to air traffic control ensuring the correct information is known about the area where there are wind farms.

Ray Edgson, Ventures Director at Cambridge Consultants explained, "The unique radar offering is a result of our extensive work with aviation and wind energy stakeholders to create a technical solution which fully meets their requirements."

This new technology should be widely available to wind farms by 2013.  

To read the full article please CLICK HERE

Renewableuk's 33rd annual conference & exhibition this week

24/10/2011

The Renewable UK annual conference and exhibition is taking place this week from 25th to 27th October in Manchester. This is a great opportunity for all involved with the industry to keep up to date with the latest developments in all aspects of renewable energy. 

 The Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP whose responsibilities include; the DECC strategy and budgets, electricity market reform and carbon price amongst others, will be addressing the conference on Wednesday 26th October. 

Community Windpower Ltd will be attending the event, keeping ourselves up to date with all the latest developments in the ever growing renewables sector.

For more information on the Renewable UK 2011 conference and exhibition please CLICK HERE

21/10/2011

"Consumers have been faced with rising energy bills because of volatility in the gas market, not because of our ambition to rely increasingly upon renewable energy.

Despite repeated public statements from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), Chris Huhne, and Ofgem, confusion persists within the media about why energy bills have risen so sharply.

It is unfortunate that Bill Jamieson’s article (18 October) did little to clarify the issue. Last week Ofgem, whose principal objective is to protect the interests of electricity consumers, issued a report which said: "Higher gas prices have been the main driver of increasing energy bills over the last eight years."

On Monday, a Friends of the Earth report said if we forged ahead with new fossil fuel power plants instead of investing in renewables it would add £300 per year on to energy bills. And the DECC suggests environmental and energy efficiency programmes will add £13 to the average energy bill in 2020.

Lastly, Mr Jamieson cites Mott MacDonald’s 2010 report which far from puts onshore wind in a negative light as he suggests. In fact, it concludes: "Onshore wind is the least-cost, zero-carbon option in the near to medium term, with a cost of £94/MWh some £5/MWh less than nuclear."

Renewables provide Scotland with a win-win opportunity; producing clean energy, creating jobs and attracting investment."

Niall Stuart (Scottish Renewables) response to rising energy prices in The Scotsman. To read the full article please click here.

A Point of View by Will Self

17/10/11

"The countryside is often a man-made landscape, not a natural idyll, and wind turbines are just part of that tradition", Will Self.

Will Self is a novelist and journalist and he recently described his thoughts on the ever changing rural landscape, with regards to power stations and wind turbines; "...the wind turbines, and to those of us who remember the landscape before their erection they may always seem a little outlandish. But no-one could reasonably claim they are objectively ugly, any more than they could say the vista of coal-fired power stations that clusters around the Humber estuary is ugly".

He continues by describing how Britain’s landscape is forever changing, and compares the aesthetics of traditional power stations to those of wind turbines. His article is ended by Will Self remarking:

"Perhaps when the entire landmass has been so subdivided that there remains not a single portion that cannot be identified as someone or other's backyard, then, and only then, will the property owners be able to acknowledge after all that there's something really rather beautiful about a wind turbine. Unfortunately, by then it will be too late because there won't be white blades whirring at the end of the garden, but black clouds belching from the chimneys necessary to power all that rural idiocy."

Something we should all think about; to read his full article please click here.

WIND POWER BREAKS 3GW MARK!!!

12/09/2011

Figures from the National Grid revealed that on 6 September the 3000 MW barrier was broken when wind power generation reached 3021 MW, resulting in it supplying 7.2 per cent of the grid’s electricity. The previous record for wind-generated electricity was set 2800 MW in January.

Maria McCaffery, chief executive of trade body RenewableUK commented that "It makes a strong case for installing even greater capacity, so that we can make the most of the bountiful wind resource we have in Britain."

SCOTLAND ON TRACK FOR 2020 GREENHOUSE EMISSION TARGETS

07/09/2011

A 7% fall in greenhouse gas emissions indicates that Scotland is on track to meet its target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions almost in half by 2020.

Industry, aviation, shipping and residential sectors all recorded reductions gases that contribute to the rise in the atmospheres temperature in the latest available data released by the Scottish Government.

Stewart Stevenson the climate change minister said 'These figures demonstrate continued progress towards achieving our world-leading climate change targets. Whether public sector, private companies or households, we all need to play our part in delivering a low-carbon Scotland which will continue to see greenhouse gas emissions fall'.

To see the data in full click the link below:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/09/05154117/0

NEW RADAR SYSTEM OPENS UP NEW SITES

31/08/2011

New mobile radar systems, each costing about £20 million, are being purchased from a US defence contractor to ensure Britain's early warning systems remain effective in detecting enemy aircraft and missiles.

Radar operators find it hard to distinguish between aircraft and wind turbines, creating 'black holes' in Britain's early warning radar system as well as confusing civil and military air traffic controllers at inland locations.

The Ministry of Defence had objected to a number of large-scale developments over fears for national security.

But energy companies appear to have overcome those concerns by buying the mobile radar system, which has shown in recent tests it can distinguish between aircraft and turbines.

To read more CLICK HERE

ADVANCED BATTERY STORAGE CAPABILITIES TETSED IN CHINA

27th July 2011

An energy company in China is installing a large battery system at its plant in Hangzhou to test how advanced energy storage can help deal with the challenges posed by the country’s rapid wind-energy growth.

The 500-kilowatt system from A123 Systems is set to be installed at Dongfang Electric Corporation’s (DEC) manufacturing facility in Zhejiang Province by the end of this year. DEC is the third largest manufacturer of wind turbines in China.

"The government has set ambitious goals to increase wind power in China to about 170GW (gigawatts) by 2020, and DEC looks forward to doing our part to help reach this target," said Mr. He, general manager of Dongfang Electrical Machinery Co. "However, there will be infrastructure and interconnection challenges along the way that must be addressed. Advanced storage technology continues to show promise as a potential solution to the variability of wind energy generation, and installing this project with A123 will allow us to gain hands-on experience with grid-scale storage systems. Ultimately, we expect this to help us understand how we can leverage larger-scale energy storage deployments to facilitate the rapid adoption of wind energy across China."

The installation will be A123′s first energy storage system in China, where only about 72 percent of the country’s total wind power generating capacity is connected to the power grid, according to data from the China Power Union. This is largely due to the unacceptable Low Voltage Ride Through (LVRT) capability—during periods of low grid voltage, wind farms are disconnecting and are slow to reconnect when voltage increases—and the general lack of ramp management technology, which results in the inability to predict the output of wind farms and leads to grid instability.

A123′s advanced nanophosphate lithium-ion energy storage systems are designed to improve grid stability and facilitate the integration of renewable energy sources.

DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY WIND FARMS COULD RAISE 3 MILLION A YEAR

19 July 2011

Wind farm developments in Dumfries and Galloway could contribute about £3m a year to local and regional projects.

Councillors are being asked to back changes to a framework which seeks to maximise the benefits from wind energy. It would see developers asked to make an increased contribution to the community in which they place turbines. If approved it is estimated that it would generate £1.9m a year for local projects and a further £1.2m going to region-wide initiatives.

The current arrangements for community benefits from wind farms have been in operation since 2005 - and since then there have been five such agreements. Some 60% of the funds are allocated for local community council-led projects and the remainder to a regional energy-efficiency fund.

However, there has been a big increase in the number of wind energy schemes in recent years. There are 26 developments of more than 5MW within the planning system and 148 smaller schemes. A revised framework has been drawn up with the aim of ensuring so-called "host" communities - those within a radius of about 10 miles (16km) of a wind farm - get the full benefits.

Councillors are also being asked to support the appointment of a dedicated officer to manage the funds at a cost of £40,000 per year.

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