Fully Charged Dives Deep Into Wind Turbines At Britwind
We regularly highlight one of our favorite cleantech shows — Fully Charged — here on CleanTechnica and we have another episode for you today. What I love about this episode (and most of the Fully Charged series) is that Bobby Llewellyn (the host) has a unique ability to dive into a new complex topic and unpack it in a way that’s easy to understand for someone who knows nothing about it (like me in the case of wind turbines).
This particular episode contains some fun insights into how wind turbines work that really helped me … and I’m hoping will also help you. Bobby heads into a factory in Britain that builds small to medium wind turbines from “tip to toe.” This is huge in an industry that is built largely on the shoulders of imports, which ultimately means jobs are exported from the country.
Britwind, part of Ecotricity (a company CleanTechnica has covered many times), took the ideal of localizing to the next level and actually brought the blade-making process back from Thailand … including bringing the physical molds used back from Thailand. Seeing the molds and the process firsthand is neat, as it helped me to better understand how they are made. Essentially, fiberglass fabric is laid out in a mold, doused with an epoxy, then vacuum sealed to force the material to fit the required shape and to all but eliminate any air bubbles.
As noted above, Britwind produces small to medium wind turbines, which translates to 5 kW units up to the newly developed 15 kW unit, the H15. The smaller unit is a good fit to power a few homes (in an adequately windy and clear area) whereas the larger unit can power an estimated 12 homes, which would be a great fit for many small businesses or even a community or neighborhood.
Thanks again to CleanTechnica reader Philip Waterhouse for highlighting this fun video. I caught this particular episode a few weeks back but it was great to watch it again and to extract the key learnings from what is truly a very insightful show.
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