Farmer trials 'green' electricity

BBC Thursday, 22 November 2007, 18:25 GMT

A Shropshire farmer is to test a greener form of energy by having a wind turbine installed on his land as part of a research project.
Tony Boyle, who farms at Aston Eyre near Bridgnorth, is trialling six different turbines for the Green Company and Wolverhampton University.
Two small generators are already being used to power batteries and lights for remote barns.
The latest turbine will provide about £1,200-worth of electricity annually.
That is about double what the farm needs and any surplus will be sold back to the National Grid at a profit, a spokesman for the Green Company said.
Mr Boyle said he and other farmers and landowners were keen to see how effective the trial was and that early signs were very positive with neighbours asking which turbine they should install

Planning authority’s approval in June 2006

25/04/07 - Archive News
I can confirm that since the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea planning authority’s approval in June 2006, for the four wind turbines on our building, we have at last installed them and went live and connected to the Electricity Grid; on 1/4/2007.

To keep in the spirit of the environmental concerns of London Mayor Ken Livingstone, when he was quoted in The Sunday Times, 13th of Feb 2005 addition, that he wanted London to be the world’s “greenest” capital on earth, I came up with a proposal to install four Wind Turbines, on our Building and appointed THE GREEN COMPANY (EUROPE) LTD.

We were one of only two planning applications the other by the Tory leader Mr. David Cameron. We hoped we will be the first approval and the first installation in the whole of London……….It was like a personal race with Mr. Cameron. However we thought we lost this personal race to be the first when Mr. Cameron fitted his wind turbine to his House in March. Unfortunately, Mr. Cameron had to take down his Turbine because it was fitted incorrectly and not according to his planning approval. It transpired that we then were officially the first. Anyway we considered that we were the first to install four wind turbines on a residential building in the City of London.

Mr. Kassem Shakarchi

Scirocco wind turbines running in Orkney

9/11/07 - Archive News

"Watching the news last night on the TV, it seemed that Orkney had the worst of the weather yesterday - Even speaking to someone in Shetland today, they reckoned there was less wind up there yesterday than there was here in Orkney.

With 4 Scirocco wind turbines running in Orkney at the moment, and I thought you might be interested to hear how they all fared!

The highest wind speed we recorded was 43.8 m/s, and for a significant part of the day (0700 to 1500 or so) the wind sat steady at between 30 and 35 m/s, fluctuating up to 40ish. There were a lot of brownouts and blackouts on the grid, some lasting overnight and the power only
being re-instated this morning.

3 of the owners phoned me up at various points in the day yesterday, as the wind was battering us about. All were just phoning in to report their turbines were doing away fine, and what their latest meter readings were! One of the owners was without grid overnight and was wondering what he should do with his turbine. We simply advised him to leave it be, and when the grid returned, it would all come back on line again. This he did, and I spoke to him again to day and all is well! We reckon it ran free in nothing less than 20 m/s all night, and nearer 30 m/s most of the time!

One off grid client had kWh's coming out of her ears yesterday - Remember that unlike many turbines, the Scirocco makes full power even in 30 m/s and doesnt tail off in high winds.

Unfortuantely, we did have some other problem wind turbines yesterday, but not Eoltecs. We have one with a burned out generator core, and about 4 others that suffered DC overvoltage "lockouts" which lost a whole 24 hours production until the wind dropped sufficiently for the inverters to reset.

I also had a phone call from someone who DIY installed a 1 kW turbine earlier in the year - It didnt survive, and broke up, apparantly quite spectacularly in the wind! His house and office overlooks an Eoltec wind turbine so he was asking today if we could fit a Eoltec Scirocco instead, as it galled him looking at it running away all day through the storm as his lay in bits!

This morning it was pretty cold, with some bits of snow lying around. With the air being this cold (and dense!) this is about as onerous as it gets for turbine survivability! We notice the big turbines do a lot more power in the colder weather due to the denser air, so wind
whisling past a turbine at 3 degrees and 44 m/s is a pretty good test for it! " Bryan

First wind turbine installer

4/10/07 - Archive News
The Green Company is the first wind turbine installer to be accredited under the DTI's (now BERR) Microgeneration Scheme.

The Green Company is formed

8/8/06 - Archive News
The Green Company is formed to help people reduce their impact on climate change in ways that make financial sense, and without changing their lifestyles.