After almost 3 months of standing poised and ready for action in the grounds of APD, our 15m tall wind turbine from SD Wind has made its debut!
The Switch On
A few members of the APD team gave up their weekend so they could switch off the power to our building, and carry out the finishing touches of the installation process. Our existing mains distribution board was removed and replaced, and the connection to the G99 isolation panel was completed, ensuring the system can be isolated from the main grid when necessary in future. Then on Sunday afternoon, after final checks and tests were carried out, we saw the first turn of the blades at precisely 1.37pm!
The Results
The big switch on was perfectly timed, as the very next day the Annan area saw wind speeds of up to 50mph which meant the turbine was able to produce just under 60kWh of power on its first full day of generation.
To put that into context, Ofgem estimates that the average UK household uses 2,900 kWh of electricity in a year, the equivalent of 7.95 kWh a day. Meaning that in very simple terms, the energy output from the turbine yesterday was enough to power 7 houses for a whole day. Not a bad start.
What’s next?
The best part is that the energy generation from the turbine is already being used to power the APD building – which means we are already less reliant on the grid. However we don’t know to what extent just yet.
But that’s about to change. This week we plan to fit an innovative energy insights system from Centrica, that will allow us to continuously monitor our energy consumption in real-time, all thanks to some clever little sensors. These self-powered, wireless sensors will build up a comprehensive picture of the energy it takes to heat and power our workshop and offices, so very soon we’ll know exactly how fruitful our wind turbine is!
The wind turbine is only one piece of our energy generation project. We already have 75 Perlight Delta solar panels installed on our roof, due to have their own big “switch on” in the coming days. Once operational, our solar array will be capable of producing up to 30kW of additional electrical energy for our building – 4 times that of the turbine!
What an exciting start to 2023 for APD.