Top 10 New Green Energy Projects in UK
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 03.17.06
The British government wants 10% of the country's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2010 (it's a start), and so presumably to encourage those that are doing well, the UK Department of Trade and Industry has highlighted 10 green energy projects that started operation in 2005 and are "leading the way". Energy minister Malcolm Wicks said: "The projects highlighted have certainly made their contribution to reducing carbon emissions and increasing the megawatt capacity that comes from green sources" and "helped people understand 'what renewable energy is and where it comes from.'"
The top 10 includes:
- The 30-turbine Kentish Flats wind farm ("the Ferrari of the turbine world," whatever that means).
- Black Law A in South Lanarkshire, one of the largest wind farms approved in the UK.
- The Cefn Croes wind project near Aberystwyth, the most powerful when it opened in June 2005.
- The CIS tower in Manchester - the city's tallest building - on course to be the biggest user of solar panels in the UK.
- The biomass plant in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, for producing a "revolutionary new wood pellet bio fuel", created by burning sawdust and woodchips.
- The wave buoy project off the north Cornwall coast, a project that would "speed up the installation of one of the world's first wave farms".
- Spen Valley Sports College, West Yorkshire - microgeneration.
- Eden Project, Cornwall - solar power (first picture of this post).
- Nissan Motor Plant, Sunderland - microgeneration.
- Science Museum, London - solar power.
Any readers from the UK have seen any of them? Thoughts?
Via the BBC, ::Top 10 green energy schemes named, ::In pictures: Green energy schemes
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Look at the size of the parking lot at the Eden Project! I hope they have some stormwater retention in place!
I seem to remember that the Eden Project is very conscientious about the details of their design. Their goal is to be as ecologically sensitive as possible. Check out their website: http://www.edenproject.com
The wave farm looks interesting. I wonder if that would be practical in Alaska?
I live about 40 miles from the eden project and the new solar power system, it was installeed by http://www.solarcentury.co.uk/ it looks amazing, and fits in with the surroundings.
The wave farm off of cornwall is intersting and we all await the results locally to see if it will help, the problem is even with all of this going on, the government (local) want to build a fuel burning powerstatio in Plymouth, 40 miles from all of them.... amazing.
I wonder if it was intentional to make it look like a Chinese New Year dragon,from overhead.
I read a book the other day that said there are enough apropriate wind turbine sites around european coastlines to provide for our electricity needs threefold.
The book was quite an old one (1992 I think) but we can't be using three times the energy we were then yet.
i was part of the wind turbine commite at spen and i think the students in volved should have some gratetude. we were yrs 9,10 and 11 and we all worked are butts of for that wind turbine