St Bride’s P5 visit to Whitelee Wind Farm

Renewable Energy Scotland is in the forefront of developing renewable energy especially using wind. We have already been using hydro electricity for many, many years. Now scientists in Scotland are also developing tidal and wave energy.

Whitelee Wind Farm To find out more about renewable energy we took the short journey to the wind farm which lies on a moor within half an hour’s travelling time from Glasgow.

Energy on our doorstep!

On our arrival we met one of the rangers who was going to help us understand renewable energy.

Whitelee is the largest onshore windfarm in the UK. It has 215 turbines. It generates 539 megawatts of electricity. That is enough to power 300,000 homes!

Why wind? It is a clean natural force that costs nothing.

She made sure that we were going to treat the moorland with respect.

Whitelee has been designed to work in harmony with the environment. Here are some examples. It is home to the common lizard…

red grouse…

and the insect-eating sundew plant!

It was important that we understood the wind farm was preserving wildlife on the moor.

We were told about the design of the paddles and we were able to see one close up as it was on display on the ground.

Scientists have spent years experimenting with blade shapes and have discovered that the best shape is that of a tall tower with 3 blades.

There are 3 different types. 140 Siemens turbines that stand 110 metres tall. 69 Alstom turbines that stand 140 metres tall. 6 Alstom that stand 110 metres tall.

We were able to get very close to the turbines.

We were able to look closely at the base.

We were shown one of the bolts at the base of the turbine. We were not allowed to hold one as it was far too heavy!

We really feel quite small!

The ranger then explained the rules of a game we were about to play.

In teams we had to take counters that had a number of volts written on them out of buckets.

We had to give the counters to our team captain who had then to add up the numbers.

The first to add up to 1000 volts was the winner!

We had a hands-on workshop where we worked with different shaped paddles.

We were given the challenge to find the best shaped paddle for generating enough power to light a bulb.

The rectangular paddles generated the most power. They had to be manipulated to face the best direction.

It was great fun learning in this way. We had to cooperate with each other to complete the task successfully.

This was a great day outside the classroom and we have learned lots about renewable energy.