SBCES Wind Turbine Now Generates Renewable Energy!

As we reported at the end of last month, the South Brent Community Energy Society's "remanufactured" Vestas V27 wind turbine has now been delivered and installed. Here's a time lapse video revealing the steps involved in installing a wind turbine:

Installation of the SBCES Wind Turbine from Jim L. Hunt on Vimeo.

Last weekend I went on a visit to the site shortly before the SBCES annual general meeting was held in South Brent village hall. Here are a few snaps I took, plus one taken by a man with a camera at the top of the turbine's mast, which shows an aerial view of the adjacent Marley Thatch solar PV farm!

A view of the Marley Thatch solar PV farm from the top of the SBCES wind turbine

Following the installation of the turbine it seems there were a few teething troubles that still needed sorting out. However by September 14th those had been solved, all the right paperwork had been sent off to OFGEM, the wind turbine was feeding electricity into the grid and the South Brent Community Energy Society were finally expecting to receive some income after many years of hard work and the expenditure of considerable sums of money. The Society tell me that the turbine installation has cost £383,500 so far, and the grid connection an additional £17,000. They're now waiting for formal accreditation from OFGEM, and some money should then start flowing into their bank account, rather than out, in the very near future.

A view of the SBCES wind turbine and grid connection from the road

A view inside the nacelle of the SBCES wind turbine

A view of the SBCES wind turbine from the road at Blue Post