Wood, winds and water
Oil and gas may be reaching their peak, but Britain’s winds, woodlands and water resources hold reserves of power which are still scarcely tapped, says Martin Wright. This year’s UK Ashden Award finalists for generation reveal some of that potential.
Soft breezes blow
Wind power has had a patchy press of late, but there are more ways of harnessing it than large scale farms in open country. The Swift is made to be mounted on the roof. Just two metres in diameter, it can catch enough breeze to generate up to 80% of a household’s electricity needs. And, claim its inventors, it will do so in virtual silence: there’s no thud or whirr from its carbon fibre blades to disturb the neighbours. It’s the creation of two Edinburgh-based renewable energy consultants, Charlie Silverton and David Anderson of Renewable Devices. After years of consultancy, they were determined to produce something tangible and useful.
Whether Swifts installed en masse on city rooftops will charm or offend passers by remains to be seen, but initial reactions seem positive. Two Swifts have been installed on Edinburgh primary schools – and a third on a BP petrol station next to the airport. That last site might seem rich with ironies, but the oil giant is already a valued customer, and there’s no doubting the capacity which large energy companies have to roll out such technologies to a mass market.
“It’s virtually silent: there’s no thud or whirr to disturb the neighbours.”
Meanwhile, it’s the only roof-mounted turbine to meet all relevant UK and EU safety standards, which means its purchasers are eligible for grant funding from the Clear Skies renewables programme. It’s already withstood the ferocity of Scotland’s winter gales, continuing to spin out power as wind speeds hit 80mph.
At present, Renewable Devices is something of a cottage industry – producing around 20 turbines per week – but demand is soaring, with 4,000 Swifts on the order books for next year alone. At the moment it retails for around £8,000, but once they’re established in mass production next year, insists Anderson, that should come down to around £1,500, including installation – a lot less than most people spend on a new kitchen.
Water rebirth
The industrial revolution had a water birth. Before oil, before coal, there was water, spinning the wheels which powered the first factories. But water soon gave way to fossil fuels, leaving the old mills as little more than beautiful relics, to be immortalised by artists such as Constable and other recorders of the rural idyll.
But the rivers and streams are still there, and still have the power to turn a turbine. And after years of neglect, some of those old watermills are starting to find a new lease of life as micro-hydro power plants. They’re never going to power the nation’s industry again single-handed, but as with last year’s Ashden Award winners Miles and Gail Fursdon [GF Special Supplement, Slow Burn, Out of the woods, July/August 2004] they hold out the prospect of generating significant amounts of electricity in a way that’s harmonious with both our natural and architectural heritage. There’s a cluster of old watermills in the Somerset valleys, where the district council has launched South Somerset Hydropower Group, helping local owners bring their mills back to life. Already they have around 10 mill owners on board, with the combined potential to produce over 600,000kWh of electricity a year – saving 260 tonnes of carbon emissions.
“Before coal, before oil, there was water.”
It’s generating public interest as well as power. Over 4,000 people have visited Gants Mill in the last year alone, to see how climate-friendly energy can co-exist with a beautiful old building. And it’s helping revive regional industries, too, with many of the turbines being manufactured in Devon and Cornwall. As word spreads, so the scheme is seeding new groups in the Mendip Hills and in Dorset’s Stour Valley, and with an estimated 20,000 old mill sites scattered across the UK, there’s no shortage of watery potential.
A fair field full of power
Powering a school or factory with wood may sound hopelessly folksy, but there’s growing excitement at the role which such ‘biomass’ fuel can play in securing sustainable energy supplies for Britain’s future. The logic is simple enough: why import oil or gas from half way across the world when we can meet at least some of our needs by growing our own energy here at home? Converting boilers to run on woodchips from specially grown coppice or tree waste is surprisingly straightforward, and opens up a potentially lucrative new market for farmers, tree surgeons and woodland owners.
TV Bioenergy is working with all three groups in the Thames Valley to ensure a sustainable supply of fuel for local school central heating boilers, and to promote the potential of biomass more widely. Well-managed woodlands, of the sort which attract the most wildlife, generate a fair amount of thinnings and other waste, for which there is currently no significant market. Biomass energy helps create that market, and so gives landowners an incentive to look after their woods and invest in their future.
While most biomass is presently used for heating, there’s also mounting interest in its capacity to fuel power plants, too. TV Bioenergy is supplying woodchip fuel to Slough Power Station, which is currently converting from coal to biomass. Among the station’s customers is a factory making Mars Bars. Mars Bars made, in one sense at least, out of wood…
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