Renewable Energy

REEL success at St. Christopher’s School, Staverton

by tresoc | Jul 6, 2022 | Latest TRESOC News

We were delighted to work with students at St. Christopher’s School n Staverton last month as part of our REEL programme – Renewable Energy Experiential Learning.

The programme includes student-led critical thinking around our global need for energy and takes place over 2 days. It involves site visits to see real technologies in action to produce renewable energy, followed by a making day in school, creating our own versions of renewable energy technology designs through arts and craft. It took place on 15th and 16th June.

Headmistress, Alexandra Cottell says;
“The children at St. Christopher’s hugely benefit from the input they have from the REEL project. Both the field trip and the on-site learning are very engaging and offer an excellent hands-on approach to STEM learning.”

On the field trip day we visited the Marley Head Wind Turbine, thanks to South Brent Community Energy; the Solar Farm and Woodfuel Boiler on the Dartington Estate, thanks to Dartington Trust; and the Totnes Weir Hydro thanks to Dart Renewables.

On the making day, we ran 3 workshops, solar, wind and hydro (experimenting with solar circuits, lemon batteries, multi meters, making Archimedes Screws and Savonious wind turbines).

Each REEL project supports joined up skills in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). REEL is now in its 5th year, has been delivered for free to over 10 schools and over 260 children have taken part.

RCEF Stage 2 Development grant for Clay Park

by tresoc | Oct 19, 2021 | Latest Blog Post, Latest TRESOC News, News

TRESOC and Transition Homes Community Land Trust (THCLT) are thrilled to announce TRESOC’s award of a second Government grant, for £79,710, from the Rural Community Energy Fund (RCEF). The money will be used for the development of a Community Microgrid and Solar scheme at THCLT’s Clay Park development. THCLT has planning permission for 31 highly energy-efficient eco-homes and are currently submitting a planning application to add eight more homes to the site to help balance the books. This application also includes plans to increase the biodiversity of the site through extra tree planting, marsh plants in the damper areas and bird, bee and bat boxes to house wildlife. The housing development will offer a choice of affordable rent or shared ownership for local people in housing need. It has invited TRESOC to become the energy supplier, and to own and operate the energy system.

The innovative microgrid design will enable residents to maximise the use of the 160kW rooftop Solar PV, by sending the green energy to wherever it is needed on site, rather than feeding it back to the grid as is customary. This will make it more efficient and enable the green energy to be sold to the residents at a reduced market rate. TRESOC envisages this to be 10% less than grid price, minimising residents’ energy bills. The energy system software will further maximise energy savings by heating hot water from the daytime solar.

TRESOC received a Stage 1 RCEF Grant to carry out a feasibility study that demonstrated the project is technically and economically viable. The Stage 2 Development Grant will now pay for the technical, legal, financial and community engagement work to take the project to the point of being finance ready.

Jon Rattenbury, Programme Manager for the SW Energy Hub, said: “We are delighted to be supporting TRESOC through the next stages of their Clay Park projects. Innovative projects such as this prove how much community initiatives can achieve in the energy space and the vital role projects like these play in the transition to net zero.”

The grant recognises the innovative nature of the project, which it is hoped will demonstrate an economically viable community business model for providing solar PV on housing estates that can be shared with other community energy groups, and the energy sector more widely. Part of the grant is specifically for knowledge sharing and dissemination, and TRESOC have waived any intellectual property rights. TRESOC are a member of the Devon Community Energy Network and has encouraged the establishment of a microgrids working group to facilitate this knowledge sharing. There are several local community energy groups exploring microgrids, who will be able to share the Clay Park legal and technical templates, greatly reducing their own development costs.

TRESOC are working with Buro Happold for the technical design and Ansley Foot Solicitors for legal work. Communities for Renewables and Westerly Chartered Accountants will be providing financial advice. Within the technical design Buro Happold have already identified several software gaps and are using the project to kick start innovation in these areas which will help other small scale microgrids going forward.

The capital to pay for the infrastructure, ie the microgrid, solar and EV charging system – approximately £160,000 – will be raised through a community share offer. Clay Park residents, TRESOC members and the Totnes and Dartington community will be eligible to participate. The feasibility study projected an interest rate of 3% with a payback period of 20 years. Surplus income from the project will be used to support ongoing energy advice work with residents, a Clay Park Community Fund and TRESOC’s Renewable Energy Experiential Learning (REEL) programme for local primary schools.

On site at Clay Park, the access road has gone in. However, the main construction project is delayed while THCLT await the outcome of their revised planning application. They hope to begin construction in the new year.

REEL at St Christopher’s school, Staverton

by tresoc | Jun 2, 2021 | Latest Blog Post, Latest TRESOC News, News

TRESOC was delighted to be back in schools at the end of May, running its free renewable energy education programme for primary schools. The Renewable Energy Experiential Learning (REEL) programme ran with Year 6 at St Christopher’s Prep School in Staverton over two days.

On the field trip day, the children visited the Marley Head wind turbine (grateful thanks to South Brent Community Energy Society), Totnes weir hydro (with thanks to Dart Renewables Ltd), and the Dartington solar farm and woodfuel boiler (thanks to Dartington Hall Trust). TRESOC is extremely grateful to its sponsors for their ongoing support and access to their installations. As our Operations Director Sally Murrall-Smith said, “I’m aware of how lucky we are in Totnes, to have so many innovative organisations and embedded renewable technologies on our doorstep – organisations that are very happy to engage with the programme and enrich it. As a result, the children learn about renewable energy and wider energy issues. My hope is that the REEL programme empowers children by presenting positive ways to address climate change and busting some of the myths about renewable energy technologies.”

During the workshop day, the children took part in three workshops looking specifically at solar, wind and hydro technologies. For the solar workshop, the children carried out chemistry and physics experiments using electronics equipment. They also learned how important battery technologies are for renewables; without the them the energy is only available at the time it is being generated.

Alexandra Cottell, Head Mistress of the school thinks that ‘The REEL programme is a fantastic STEM project, that brings together physics, chemistry, maths and engineering into one place. It has been an enriching experience for all the children. It is the fourth time that the school have taken part is in the programme and we hope to continue to do so into the future.”

: Children testing the moisture content of the wood chips for the Dartington biomass boiler, which heats the buildings in the medieval courtyard on the estate. The drier the better; a high moisture content creates more smoke and harmful particles of air pollution.

: Busting the myth that you can get electrocuted by simply touching a PV panel. The children understood that the panels do get hot on a sunny day.

: The children were surprised how quiet the turbine was compared to the traffic on A38, despite being stood 100m away when it was operating at full power. South Brent Community Energy Society said they have carried out a study on bird strikes and found no evidence of it happening.

: The students were impressed to see the two turbine at Totnes Weir Hydro working flat out, providing enough power for a 3rd of all homes in Totnes.

: The first experiment was to create a battery from a piece of fruit and explored voltage and current using multi-meters.

: They then used their batteries to examine the effects of location (sun direction and intensity) and direction on the voltage and current produced by a mini-solar panel.

: The children made their own Savonious wind turbine cut out of cardboard. This involved producing a technical drawing of the panels and using geometry to work out required angles.

: Wind turbines assembled.

: In the hydro workshop, the children made an Archimedes screw out of plastic tubes and elastic bands, to move water up hills, the way Archimedes originally intended!

The children were also lucky enough to take part in a craft workshop to make renewable energy artwork that works using the energy from the sun. The Cyanotype session was run by Chloe Uden and Naomi Wright from Art and Energy Collective. They are the inspiration and driving force behind the Moths to a Flame movement that is turning calls for urgent action on the Climate Emergency into a magnificent mass-participation art installation at COP26 in Glasgow this year, using the moth as a metaphor for our relationship with energy. They are inviting everyone to help make 20,000 moths and record messages for COP26 delegates, which will be exhibited at the Glasgow Botanical Garden during the COP26 and then in Plymouth. TRESOC will be running community moth making events in the summer.

: Cyanotype prints use a mixture of iron compounds exposed to UV light. Washed in water, the iron oxidises to create beautiful Prussian Blue images.

Turning Problems Into Solutions

by tresoc | Apr 1, 2021 | Latest TRESOC News

TRESOC is proud to have supported CISTAfrica’s Clean Cooking Kenya project by loaning them our MD Ian Bright. The project is turning an invasive plant – water hyacinth – from something choking its waterways into clean fuel; bioethanol. This reduces the use of wood and charcoal for cooking, which improves air quality and biodiversity and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Even the byproducts are beneficial – check out the video to find out more.

Ian spent the first couple of months of 2021 in Kenya consulting with the project organisers on how to make the fuel at scale. This film is one of the outcomes.

MD Ian Bright on Soundart Radio

by tresoc | Sep 3, 2020 | Latest TRESOC News, News

In August, Ian was interviewed by the hosts of the On The Land And Water Radio Show, a new magazine programme on local station Soundart Radio with an interest in, you guessed it, land and water. He was talking about the Archimedes Screw at the weir on the River Dart, as well as possible new projects. Some of the interview will be broadcast in subsequent shows, but the bulk of the conversation is available to listen to here. Ian starts 55mins in, but the rest of the show is well worth a listen. (There is a scrollbar at the bottom of the screen that can take you straight to Ian.)

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