Green Energy

Today we drive east to visit our niece and her husband in their ‘new’ house near Mold. I say ‘new’ as they’ve been living here since 18 months, and far from it being a new building, it’s a sensitively converted 19th century farm house. 

The previous owners took the rather sad dilapidated building and lovingly restored it, leaving Maya and Ian the photographic evidence. Although the previous owners had higher offers for the house, they were keen to sell to them because they were locals and clearly loved the place - a refreshing attitude. They love living in the middle of nature, bordering the AONB, and watching fall lies of badgers visit. 

Returning home, we decide to take the route via Brenig - a large reservoir created in the 1970s. It’s a very popular area for water sports, and now has its own Osprey project. This year’s chicks have fledged but remain close to the nest, so there are four of these magnificent birds still here. They’re very distant from the look-out point, but can be seen through the scopes, none of them venturing across the water for now. 

I’ve not come to photograph the ospreys though. It’s the wind turbines across the lake I’m interested in. Huge, towering structures catching the light on a dull bank holiday afternoon where sun occasionally peaks through the clouds. I love this view with its tapestry of textures - light and shade enhancing the patterns of the land. And looking carefully you can spot the tiny forms of sheep and cattle emphasising the gigantic forms behind. This is the Brenig Wind Farm, small in comparison to the massive farm off our coast, but the impact of this Green Energy is clear in the extract below. 


The consented development of 16 turbines will have the installed generation capacity of up to 40MW of electricity, enough to power the annual equivalent demand of 20,000+ homes. On average it is envisaged that the wind farm will produce an output of 105,120MW hours/year, i.e. 30% of what it would produce if it were operating continually at maximum output.

During the 25 year lifetime it will cut emissions of carbon dioxide by 2.26million tonnes, sulphur dioxide by 2,625 tonnes, and nitrous oxide by 525 tonnes, helping to combat climate change.