| Type | limited company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Energy |
| Founded | 1982 |
| Headquarters | Kings Langley, England |
| Products | Electricity generation, wind turbines |
| Parent | Sir Robert McAlpine |
| Website | http://www.res-group.com |
The RES Group (Renewable Energy Systems) is a UK-based renewable energy project developer. Its core business is to develop, construct and operate large-scale, grid-connected renewable energy projects worldwide. As part of the Sir Robert McAlpine group, RES is active in the wind, biomass and solar energy sectors. It has been at the forefront of the wind energy industry for over 25 years and is now expanding in on-site and building-integrated renewables as well as in building design and consultancy. RES is also an independent power producer, owning and operating a growing portfolio of wind farms around the world.
Contents |
Renewable Energy Systems was started in 1982 as part of the Sir Robert McAlpine group of engineering and construction companies. Its early years were spent in researching various designs for commercial wind turbines,including work on a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) model as well as the now more widely-used Horizontal Axis (HAWT) units. The company built its first commercial wind farm at Carland Cross in Cornwall in 1992, using 15 Vestas turbines, each of 400 kW capacity. In December 1998, the first commercial 1MW wind turbine to be designed and built in the UK was installed by RES at Slievenahanaghan, Co Antrim.
In 2001 the company built the then largest wind farm in the world at King Mountain in Texas, using 214 Bonus turbines of 1.3 MW capacity. In 2005, RES won a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Sustainable Development category. More recently the company has been active in the developing offshore UK wind power market. It has supported the delivery of both onshore and offshore engineering works for the Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farms off the coast of Lincolnshire in the UK.
The RES Group has now developed and/or constructed over 100 wind farms worldwide, with more than 5GW of capacity. In addition, it has projects on its books totaling several thousand megawatts worldwide, at various stages of development.
Within the Group, Inbuilt.[1] provides a consultancy service for sustainable design in the built environment.
The RES Group has offices across the UK, Europe, North America and Australasia.
Since late 2003 RES has been based at its award-winning, low carbon headquarters building at Beaufort Court,[2] Kings Langley, Hertfordshire in the UK. This unique site, centred on the old 'Arts and Crafts' style Ovaltine Egg Farm building originally constructed in 1929, uses electricity supplied from its own 225 kW Vestas V29[3] wind turbine and from on-site photovoltaic panels. Heat comes from 170 m2 of solar thermal panels and from a biomass boiler. A miscanthus energy crop is grown on 5 hectares of the site, whilst cooling is produced on demand using pumped ground water. Full information on the amount of energy being produced by these on-site systems is available at the Beaufort Court website.
When built in 2003, Beaufort Court was the first commercial refurbishment of an historic building to be designed to be entirely self-sufficient in renewable energy. As with any innovative and visionary project, it inevitably encountered teething problems. Since then a strategy of continual improvements has been put in place. See the consultants’ rebuttal to the 2006 Building article http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=29&storycode=3065870 The building remains a success from sustainability, educational and commercial perspectives and RES is happy for our experience to be used as a learning tool for those involved in low carbon building design.
The following sites give further information on the Beaufort Court location and the Inbuilt consultancy.
Environmental groups' site about wind power in the UK and what you can do to support it: http://www.yes2wind.com
The 2006 review of worldwide activity in wind power, from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) at http://www.gwec.net
Wind Power in the UK report, May 2005, from the Sustainable Development Commission: http://www.sd-commission.org.uk
Wind Power Monthly Magazine: http://www.windpower-monthly.com
Renewable Energy Association: http://www.r-e-a.net
Renewable Energy for Local Authorities: http://www.themertonrule.org
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||