News

News

  • VINCE CABLE, UK Secretary of State for Business recently visited a growing farm-based biomass energy business in Duns to discuss the challenges facing farmers looking to embrace renewable energy.

  • DESPITE A long history of businesses working the land in the UK, farming and profit are two words not often used in the same sentence.

  • POLITICAL TENSION over the wisdom of Scotland's wind energy policy looks likely to be heightened by a new player in the anti-camp – the UK Independence Party.

  • GENUINE COMMUNITY renewable schemes in Scotland are struggling to achieve their targets, according to Gregory Dix of Savills Energy.

  • RM ENERGY, a new joint partnership between Scottish-based Realise Renewables and East Anglia-based Mosscliff Environmental, opened for business last month, with a mission to become a major provider of renewables solutions to rural Scotland.

Wind Power

Wind Power

  • FARMERS THINKING about installing wind turbines should take the plunge sooner rather than later to make the most of diminishing Feed-In Tariff payments.

  • EIRE TURBINE manufacturers C and F Green Energy has launched its biggest machines yet, with a new range of heavyweight machines rated between 200 and 250kW.

  • AN ARRAY of 10 small-scale wind turbines have been installed at Scottish Water's Stornoway waste water treatment works.

  • WIND TURBINE installers cannot offer the same troubleshooting expertise as a machine's manufacturer – no matter what promises they might make before things go wrong.

  • AT A distance of over 16,000 kilometres, the despatch of an 11kW Gaia-Wind turbine to the South Sea island of Tonga sets the furthest ever distance for an export order for the Scottish-Danish company.

Solar Power

Solar Power

  • IN THE future, more and more farmers will go completely "off grid", disconnecting from their power supplier and becoming self sufficient.

  • FAMILY-RUN ice-cream makers Mackie's are determined to become one of the greenest companies in Britain, and with the installation of solar panels adding to their existing wind turbines, it seems they are well on their way.

  • FOLLOWING THE slashing of the tariff subsidies for photovoltaic (PV) generation, last month's massive Ecobuild exhibition and conference in London provided powerful evidence – if it was needed – that reports of the death of the UK solar PV industry are most definitely premature.

  • HAS THE sun now set on the UK's solar PV industry or not?

  • FARMERS PLANNING a solar power installation on their shed roof need to either hurry up – or think again.

Biomass

Biomass

  • SCOTTISH BIOMASS heating specialists HWEnergy has announced a partnership deal with North Yorkshire's Pennine Biomass.

  • POULTRY production is an intensive 45-day process, with a significant energy demand.

  • WITH TEMPERATURES down, and snow and ice lingering, forestry owners across Scotland are coping with an upswing in the demand for firewood.

  • Scotland's longest established biomass heating specialist, Fort William-based HW Energy, has been ranked number one in the Scottish Government's framework for installing wood fuel systems in public sector buildings.

  • "STOP SENDING money out of your estate and look at your internal wood resources, its suitability, accessibility and profitability." So says wood fuel specialist Ben Tansey, director of Northumberland based re:heat.

Hydro Power

Hydro Power

  • AFTER SEVEN years of planning and fundraising, the four partners in the Merk Hydro Project are delighted that construction work has finally begun in Glen Fyne, Cairndow, Argyll.

  • IT WAS always the government's intention to reduce the support available for renewables as the technologies matured and the costs came down – but in the case of hydro-power, there is some concern that planned 'degressions' are too much too soon.

  • RECENT GROWTH in the hydro business has led Strathardle-based Glen Hydro to open a new office in Blairgowrie and expand its workforce.

Farmer Right-hand Column