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A wind farm in the UK. Thrive Renewables
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Construction on the largest wind turbine in England is set to begin next month.
The turbine will be located in Bristol and will reach 150 meters (approximately 492 feet) into the sky, Weather & Radar reported. That’s double the height of the average English turbine, which comes to about 75 meters (approximately 246 feet).
“[It’s a] real testament of hope for the future,” project development manager David Tudgey told BBC News.
The turbine is a project of Ambition Community Energy, a community interest company founded explicitly for the purpose of building a turbine for the Bristol suburb of Lawrence Weston. The Enercon turbine will have a diameter of 115 meters (approximately 377 feet) and generate a maximum of 4.2 megawatts of energy, enough to power around 3,000 homes. This means it will generally be able to meet the domestic energy needs of the Lawrence Weston community and it will prevent nearly 120,000 tonnes of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere over the course of its lifespan, helping to mitigate the climate crisis.
Its construction, which will be conducted on site, will require around 100 tonnes of steel and 1,000 tonnes of concrete, according to BBC News. The project is projected to cost £4 million, according to Weather & Radar. That money is being provided by Thrive Renewables, according to a press release. Additional funds have been promised by Bristol & Bath Regional Capital, local lenders and a £0.5m grant from WECA via the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, according to the Ambition Community Energy website.
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Ambition Community Energy expects it to be finished by the spring, and all profits from the sale of the electricity will be reinvested in the Lawrence Weston community.
The construction comes as the UK is in the midst of an energy and cost of living crisis.
“There are homes in Lawrence Weston which suffer from poor insulation and low-energy efficiency and, with energy costs continuing to soar, this means even more of our residents will face fuel poverty,” Tudgey said in a press release. “It’s important for us that everyone is included in the clean energy transition, which is why we’ve never given up on getting this project built.”
Building taller wind turbines does have a real advantage in terms of electricity generation.
“Size does make a difference,” Charles Gamble of Ambition Community Energy told BBC News. “It generates a lot more electricity if it is bigger and higher.”
In addition, taller turbines can access faster winds, since wind speed increases with altitude, Weather & Radar pointed out.
In general, onshore wind turbines are smaller than offshore turbines. Any one of the approximately one-quarter-of-a-kilometer-tall General Electric Haliade X turbines of the UK’s Dogger Bank wind farm would be the third tallest building in London if installed in the city, according to The Conversation.
However, onshore turbines are also getting taller. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that their average height has increased by 66 percent since 1998, according to Weather & Radar. The tallest onshore wind turbine tower was launched by Danish company Vestas in September of 2022. It stretches 199 meters (approximately 653 feet), as CNBC reported at the time.
Vestas said the height would make it “possible to harvest stronger and more constant wind.”
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