Project Overview

The site

The Site of the community wind turbine is at Longley (near Hade Edge), located approximately 2km to the south of Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, adjacent to the B6106 and the Longley Farm dairy.

The wind turbine will generate electricity for a period of up to 20 years, after which time it will either be removed, or the life of the turbine  extended subject to planning consent and agreement with Longley Farm. The new wind turbine received planning consent from Kirklees Council under application number 2013/62/94011/W.

The wind turbine

The location of the wind turbine is at National Grid Reference 414780E 406170N; this is about 40m further back from the hill edge compared to the original turbine location.

The new turbine is a RRB Energy 225kW turbine, based on an original Vestas design, with the advantage of interchangeable parts with the original Vestas model.  This turbine has a 27m blade diameter and tip height of 45.4 m.

RRB Energy is an India-based wind turbine manufacturer founded in 1987. They specialise in turbines in the 225 to 1800kW size range with some 3,000 turbines installed worldwide. The V27 model was originally developed by Vestas and RRB has approximately 1,000 of their units operational worldwide. There are at least 20 operational RRB V27’s in the UK.

This new turbine replaced the original wind turbine – a 3-bladed, horizontal axis turbine with an approximate height of 32.5m and rated power of 90kW.

The new wind turbine is connected to the local electricity distribution network via Longley Farm’s existing 11kV electricity substation.

The wind resource

The mean wind speed at the hub height of the new turbine is expected to be in the range 7.0 to 7.4 m/s, giving an output of 565 to 625 MWh per year at 90% availability.

The wind resource at the site was assessed prior to installation both by analysis of the output of the existing Longley turbine for the periods for which comprehensive records are available (around 5 years from the date of commissioning) and by comparison with the output of other nearby wind turbines.

Project timetable

The wind turbine was set into commercial operation in September 2015.

Carbon emissions savings

There is a carbon footprint associated with construction, delivery and maintenance of the wind turbine, but the turbine will not contribute to climate change by directly releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, unlike conventional power generation. Independent studies have shown that turbines generate enough energy to ‘repay’ the embodied energy within 3 – 6 months1. The average Carbon Dioxide emissions from UK power stations, including coal, gas, nuclear and renewables are 537 kgCO2/MWh2. The carbon footprint from wind- generated electricity over the lifespan of a turbine varies between 4.6 and 10.2 kgCO2/MWh3. Assuming the worst case for wind, that equates to a saving of 463 kgCO2/MWh generated, displacing conventional generation.

By displacing the need for existing generation from conventional sources, it is estimated that the HoTTWind@Longley Wind Turbine repowering will reduce net emissions by approximately 287 tonnes of CO2 per year.