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Balnamoon Renewables Birsay Energy Bogfechel Burgar Hill Costa Orkney Renewables Hammars Hill Summary
Wind Energy Projects
Details of the various wind projects we have built, or are currently involved with, can be found at our archive pages, www.orkneywind.co.uk/projects, and you may download any of these documents for free under a creative commons licence. Most of these documents are in the form of adobe acrobat, and the latest version of the acrobat reader can be found at the adobe website: http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/
Orkney Sustainable Energy are the project designers and site managers of the Balnamoon wind energy project near Keith in the north-east of Scotland. This turbine is an Enercon E48, and the project has now been commissioned. The owners of the project are Balnamoon Renewables Ltd, and it is predicted that will produce around 2,500 MWh of electricity into the National Grid. Regular updates on progress and operations will be posted in these pages, and this link shows the construction of the roads and foundations: www.windfarmcivils.ie/balnamoon.htm. The turbine has been generating from the summer 0f 2009, and is achieving the predicted level of electrical output.
Vestas V52 850kW Wind Turbine. Site management and operations by Orkney Sustainable Energy Ltd on behalf of Orkney Renewable Energy Ltd. The project is fully funded by local investment, with all revenues retained within Orkney. In addition there is a local community fund distributed each year to Burray Community Association and other charities. This turbine has now been operating for over four years, and is one of the most productive machines of this scale anywhere in the World.
The Burgar Hill wind energy project began as a research site in the early 1980s, and over the last twenty five years has seen a variety of wind turbines installed, originally for research purposes and latterly for commercial generation. Richard Gauld was the original Senior Technician on the site, and the current site layout has been designed by Orkney Sustainable Energy.
The Birsay Energy turbine is positioned on the Birsay Moor in Mainland Orkney, near to the road to the Burgar Hill site. The turbine is an Enercon E44 900kW machine, commissioned in October 2009. The turbine was one of the first wind energy projects to be located within the boundary of an SPA and SSSI, demonstrating that wind turbines and nature can co-exist in harmony. Orkney Sustainable Energy are project designers and site managers.
One of the very first experiments into wind energy took place at Costa Head, on the northern edge of Mainland Orkney. We have obtained a short video of the construction of this project, demonstrating that the concept of electricity from the wind was viable over 50 years ago. It is revealing that the design of this experimental turbine is very similar to that being used in modern machines; a ground-breaking project.
The construction of the Hammars Hill windfarm began in the late summer of 2009, with the project operational in October 2010. This was the first windfarm in Orkney to be open to investors, and successfully raised all the required project finance. The first year of operation was also very successful, with the development achieving high levels of production and a 44% capacity factor.
Balnamoon Renewables Birsay Energy Bogfechel Burgar Hill Costa Orkney Renewables Hammars Hill Summary
