Great news from the Generation Team as the repower project takes another step forward; half of the old turbines have now come down and are ready to go to their new home. Jess and John recount the events of the past few weeks in the Delabole repower story.   

On the 2nd August we packed up the car with information boards and boxes of leaflets about the repower and hit the road to Delabole. This time round we were there for two weeks to inform locals, journalists and visitors about what was happening on site and to say goodbye to the old faithful turbines that have been producing renewable energy for the last 19 years.

We set up camp in our marquee, which was hired from a company that manufactures only out of canvas, no PVC.  Blustery winds and rain left us more than a little windswept and before long we had puddles in our tent. The Cornish wind is the reason Delabole is a perfect site for our new wind farm, and never ones to be deterred by the weather we gladly welcomed visitors.  It was great to see such a lot of people turning up to show us their support and chat to us about the wind farm. Two of our visitors were involved in the construction of the old turbines so it was great to be able to hear their stories and chat about how things had changed since then. Against all the odds, our little tent successfully remained standing for the two weeks and on two of the days we were even able to provide homemade, locally sourced sandwiches and cakes for visitors – we certainly saw a lot more of the construction team on these days! Luckily we didn’t need to camp out in the rain too, getting the chance instead to stay at Good Energy customer Bangor’s Organic B&B near Bude, one of only 3 certified organic B&Bs in the UK.

Juliet Davenport, Good Energy Founder, also came down for a few days to help out and chat to journalists. The strong winds and thick fog meant that for a couple of days it was too dangerous to bring down the turbines. Despite all this, half of the turbines have been successfully decommissioned, and the guys on site are working hard to get the remaining turbines down. In fact, the first turbine down was also the first turbine that was installed back in 1991! We will be back to welcome more visitors and the new turbines in September, so keep an eye open if you are interested and we will let you know when we’ll be down there.

Watch this space for the second update from Sonia Hawkey, our local Delabole blogger. Sonia says the repower project is eagerly anticipated by the locals, who have likened the turbines coming down to the age-old favourite song, ’10 green bottles’. We look forward to hearing what the decommissioning of the old turbines means to her.