5. Around the UK

Barrow Offshore Wind

The Barrow Offshore Wind (BOW) project, 4 miles off the South Cumbrian coast, has now been commissioned- the UK’s newest offshore wind farm. It represents an investment of more than £100 million by its joint owners, British Gas parent company Centrica and Danish energy group DONG Energy.

The wind farm will supply electricity to British Gas customers. It is the first of several large scale projects planned for the Irish Sea, which is one of three strategic zones laid down by the government for offshore wind farm development. The rectangular wind farm site covers 10 sq km of the East Irish Sea, consisting of four rows of turbines spaced 500 meters apart. The two-section turbine towers, blades and nacelles were transported to the site six at a time. Each turbine weighs 250 tons and stands 120 m above sea level when the blades are vertical. ‘Not only is this is another milestone on the journey to secure the UK’s future energy needs’, said Jake Ulrich, Managing Director of Centrica Energy, ‘it underlines the significant investment to supply our British Gas customers with renewable electricity in the years ahead’. British Gas is expected to invest up to £750 million in renewable energy over the coming years.  In 2004/5 it was the only large energy supplier to meet its obligation through Renewable Obligation Certificates.  

Source: RenewableEnergyAccess.com 

Wales must accept wind

Welsh secretary Peter Hain told the Wales TUC conference that people must accept renewables and criticized opponents to the Gwynt-y-Mor off-shore windfarm near Llandudno:‘It is essential that we take on such nimbyism; failure to act would pose huge risks, not just to our environment, but to the Welsh economy too’. 

£20m for Scottish Renewables

The All Energy Conference in Aberdeen in May heard that a £20m investment is to be provided for renewables over the next two years to back the Scottish Executive’s Clean Energy Strategy. Deputy First Minister Nicol Stephen announced details, which include funding for an environmental study to help the development of off-shore wind projects, specific financial support for biomass, hydrogen, marine and microrenewables.

He said ‘We will put an extra £7.5m into supporting biomass development over the next two years. I am also releasing £1.5m to support development of hydrogen and fuel cells- over and above the millions already allocated by ITI Energy to build Scottish innovation. And only last week, I announced that we were adding an extra £3m to support microrenewables, taking our support here to more than £16m in six years.’ 

Scottish Tidal

Orkney-based Scotrenewables  are developing a free-floating,  tidal current rotor and have won £40,000 under Shells Springboard Award scheme, set up for innovative green

energy projects by small companies. Earlier the project won the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Enterprise Fellowship and a £90,000 DTI grant and it recently got £150,000 from the Carbon Trust for a 3 year development programme, with a full-scale demonstrator prototype expected in 2008. 

In parallel, Wavegen, based in Inverness, but now owned by Voith Siemens Hydro, is planning a 3MW version of its on shore wave device for Siadar on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, as a joint project with npower renewables.

* The Scottish executive has funded a £45,000 feasibility study being carried out by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, to examine the possibility of linking Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles to a subsea power network, so that power generated from wind and wave power could be exported to mainland or even to Norway or Ireland.

Ban the Burn 

The Drax coal fired power plant in Yorkshire, has been the focus of a ‘Camp for Climate Action’ protesting against its emissions- although to be fair, Drax is trying to be a bit green, by co-firing with some biomass.

Bigger Wind  

The average size of wind turbines installed in the UK last year was 1,732 kW, up from 617 kW in 1999. Last years figure for Germany was 1,723 kW, Spain 1,342 , Italy,1,198, France 1,132 kW. 

Green IoW 

A £30,000 study is underway on the potential for tidal and wave energy on the Isle of Wight, including assessment of environmental impacts. The island Council wants 18% of its energy to come from renewables by 2010. 

More PV Solar  

The DTI has announced details of the successful applicants from the final round of funding under the Major Photovoltaic Demonstration Programme, with 16 schemes sharing almost £1.2m to help install. Details in Renew 164.