by tresoc | Sep 23, 2021 | Latest TRESOC News, News
105 children from years 5 and 6 at the Grove school in Totnes have taken part in TRESOC’s two-day Renewable Energy Experiential Learning (REEL) Programme. Day one was a field trip to Marley Head Wind Turbine, Marley Thatch Solar Farm and Totnes Weir Hydro. On day two (which we ran three times as there were so many children), we ran three workshops: in electronics, where children experimented with lemon batteries, mini solar panels, LEDs and multi-meters; in wind, where the children built vertical axis wind turbines out of recycled cardboard; and hydro, where children were asked to make a prototype for an Archimedes screw the way Archimedes intended – to move water uphill. They were given the materials and left to get on with it. Amazingly, several of the groups were able to complete the task with no help. Not sure how many adults would have been able to do this! The school were delighted with the project. Class teacher Miss Pearce commented that the project was amazing as all the children were totally engaged, and class teacher Mr Goud, thought the field trip really enhanced the learning experience.
The programme was enabled by a grant from the Chacegrove Family Foundation and delivered to the school for free. TRESOC is very grateful to them for their support and belief in the project.
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Lemon battery success!
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Testing a solar circuit
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Making Archimedes screws at the Grove
TRESOC is also thankful to all the individuals and companies that collaborated on the project, including: South Brent Community Energy Society, Dart Renewables Ltd, Fisktek, RES, Quintas, Octopus Energy and TRESOC Volunteer Max Faircloth. TRESOC is incredibly lucky that so many local companies see the importance of educating the next generation about decentralised renewable energy and are happy to give up their time to make this happen.
by tresoc | Sep 13, 2013 | Latest Blog Post
This article was first published in August 2013, in the Transition Free Press. Since it was written, TRESOC’s industry partner, Infinergy, has determined that the commercial risk was too high to proceed with Totnes Community Wind Farm and protesters have joined forces to defeat any proposals in the area (with no distinction made as to whether they are private or community applications). What a tragedy for clean energy in community ownership.
It’s increasingly likely that the UK will miss its European Union energy target, which is to generate 15% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) ranks the UK a depressing 25th out of 27 states on progress towards the 2020 green energy target.
This doesn’t come as a huge surprise to the 500 members of Totnes Renewable Energy Society (TRESOC). Nor did the rejection in February of our flagship project – two wind turbines in rural Devon. We expected our local Planning Committee would reject our proposal. We just didn’t know what reason they would give. In the end it was “substantial harm” to the view.
Rejection is the fate of most onshore wind farms in planning, but many are passed on appeal because planning inspectors conclude that they meet government policy and that local impact is not as great as councillors fear.
We did take the bull by the horns with this proposal – 2.3 megawatt (MW) turbines are big. But it was the best site for wind in our area, we had chosen the most cost-effective technology and in theory the government has a policy of encouraging renewables. It seemed like a huge opportunity.
Unfortunately, in June, the political wind changed direction. In what felt like a huge blow to the government’s vision for renewables and our attempts to power 2,500 households, the Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, wrote to councils giving them extra reasons to reject wind proposals. Lib Dem Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, stressed that there would be more financial benefits for communities who accepted wind farms, but the media seemed to revel in the news that additional obstacles were being created.
The Pickles letter doesn’t constitute new legislation, but it will cause confusion. In particular, it cuts across the National Planning Policy Framework, which is in favour of sensibly sited wind farms. So which should take precedence? Giving communities the right to have more of a say is a good thing, but it must come with the responsibility to contribute to society’s wider, collective needs.
In the words of the Centre for Sustainable Energy’s Chief Executive, Simon Roberts: “Rights without responsibility is a recipe for short-term, self-interested decisions that pass the buck to others; someone or somewhere else will make up for any poorly informed, parochial decisions. Yet this is what the Government seems to be doing with on-shore wind power; giving local views the upper hand over national interests in planning decisions on onshore wind farm proposals.”
Where does this leave TRESOC? Buffeted certainly, but we’re not giving up. Although we have only kilowatts of power production from our other schemes to show for huge amount of energy we’ve used to debate the pros and cons of onshore wind, we are now using knowledge gained and team resilience to move forward with the right solution for our wind project, and build our portfolio using a range of technologies including solar and river/tidal turbines.
It’s not all bad news – lobbying by community energy groups, including TRESOC, can work. In response to feedback on the type of financial incentive that works best for us, DECC is planning to increase the Feed-In Tariff threshold for community projects from 5MW to 10MW to enable larger installations to benefit.
Mostly, however, it’s a real struggle to make progress on community renewables in the current political climate. But if politicians are finding onshore wind complex, one wonders how they’ll do when fracking companies start asking to blow up the countryside in search of gas. Will fracking make wind seem more of a blast?
Jane Brady is Communications Director of TRESOC, www.tresoc.co.uk, and a member of Transition Town Totnes.
by tresoc | Dec 11, 2012 | Latest Blog Post
Last Friday TRESOC held a Christmas party in the civic hall in Totnes. Updating our members on our numerous projects, we then continued to the OSTAS – where TRESOC awarded specific members for their commitment by giving them a trophy of huge significance – a cabbage (Savoy, if you’re interested). Then wine and cheese to end evening.
I was having a discussion with one of the lucky winners – Dan Findlay – about our flagship project -Totnes Community Wind Farm (TCWF). One of the key aspects that seems to surround onshore wind projects, is the divisions it can create in the community – as well as the Government. This reminded me of an article I had read the previous week on the issue, which struck a chord:
“Pros and antis: it is disconcerting how decent they all seem……. Vexingly, the two sides of this debate do not organise neatly along opposite straits: it’s not as though the antis are fighting for the landscape, while the pros are fighting for the economy. Everyone’s a conservationist; everyone’s trying to secure a long-term energy future……”
These observations have become more and more obvious to me, after the talking to people on both sides during the past year. Both sides agree on a lot of things other than onshore wind, and often have the same priorities and motivations. It is quite ridiculous – I don’t fall out with my friends because they use an Apple Mac computer rather than a PC to blog. The one difference is amplified, whereas the similarities are acoustic whispers. This is the case in many issues that trouble society, including the debate surrounding onshore wind. So when there are headlines from the media claiming a ‘broken community’ due to TCWF, I am perplexed. Why should neighbours that have been friendly for decades, fall out over one issue they disagree on? They didn’t agree on everything before.
Clearly it’s a highly emotive issue, that touches the core of what we value, and often, becomes part of our identity. So when disagreements occur they are undeniably personal. People are genuinely worried and concerned about their standard of life. But, there needs to be some sense of proportion. Our sense of community and neighbourliness is of more value than any one issue.
We all want a viable future for our fragile environment and society. When we look objectively at the problem of securing our low carbon energy future locally, we simply cannot afford to ignore our cheapest and most widely available resource – onshore wind.
We need to acknowledge the many similarities between the opposing sides, and also the difficulties people are experiencing, in order to have better conversations. I think this quote from the same article sums up some of my sentiments:
“We are still the Saudi Arabia of wind, but you have to imagine us as an oil-rich country with a very strong objection to the extraction of oil, for reasons that are absolutely self-evident to half our parliament (and our communities) and totally obscure to the other half.”
by tresoc | Jun 6, 2012 | Latest Blog Post
I recently posted a response to the question raised by some opposing Totnes Community Wind Farm (TCWF) on Sarah Wollastons’ (MP) website:
“I’m glad the issue of scale has been raised. They are large to produce as much renewable energy as possible. It would take 92 turbines of the size proposed at Foales Leigh (50kW – 46m to tip) to produce as much as the two turbines in our proposal (at max. capacity – not taking into account a lower capacity factor).Surely the cumulative impact (noise, energy, landscape) of that number is much larger?
This also serves to show the huge loss of generation when reducing the size of the turbine – half the height but only 2.2% of the capacity (compared with one 2.3MW turbine). They are connected to the national grid because of the large amount of electricity produced – so it can go where the demand is. At present there is no other alternative local grid available. The scale of the community chosen – Totnes and its environs – was so that the necessary investment, skills and resources could be sourced. At a village scale it simply wouldn’t be possible to carry out a development of this size – £6million, 4.6MW – enough for 2500 homes.”
I hope this contains some insight for those involved in the conversation. I certainly learned something during the process.
Olly Frankland.
