Renewables Leader Brings Sustainable Energy to Life

Year 6 were treated to visions of a powerful future as Mr Elmes, Head of Business Development at wind engineering company, Siemens Gamesa, came in to talk with them about how renewable energy developments are the way forward for sustainable electricity sources.

Offshore wind farms are set to become the world’s most important source of energy being both reliable and ‘safe’ for our environment. Some, like those around the UK, are locked into the seabed and are static, but for deeper seas – such as those around California, tethered floating platforms are more suitable – albeit currently more expensive.

We learned that on windy days we can produce excess electricity in the UK and looking to the future, this could be the way we have to manage our energy where we match supply available to demand rather than demand to supply.

There is something of an arms race (literally) to get the tallest wind generators with the largest blades (which are built exactly like wings out of fibreglass to catch the air and create a difference in pressure so they ‘fly’) – with every metre extra of blade, more valuable kilowatts are generated. We tried to judge how long the largest blades were on the field. We were so shocked to see how huge they must be in real life!

Year 6 thoroughly enjoyed trying on the safety equipment needed to be worn when inspecting a wind turbine – the harnesses were very heavy and it must take a very fit person to climb so many ladders wearing them.

Huge thanks to Mr Elmes for visiting – we were blown away by your talk!