The montage above was created by me back in January, as a way of playing with the idea of how a wind farm might look on the heath. So imagine how incredible it felt to be walking around seeing the real thing up on the heath today:
I spoke to a couple of the people who built the wind turbines. Their organisation is called V3 Power, and they specialise in building renewable energy devices. They told me that the gospel book on how to build them is A Wind Turbine Recipe Book by Hugh Piggott which you can buy for £12. He highly recommended the website http://www.scoraigwind.com/
They currently have two turbines up in the air, whizzing away (he said that this spot is renowned for its wind, a point the Bugle can confirm from his kite adventures). They are hoping to put up two more tomorrow, and are currently charging four 12 volt car batteries at a time, which are then distributed around the camp when they are full, for music, computer use etc. They also have an inverter which allows them to create AC power, so that mains devices such as mobile phone chargers can be powered in the van – see below:
Wind Farm batteries on Blackheath
If you’re interested in finding out more, they are holding a workshop on Saturday at 4.30pm in the camp on Blackheath. See the map for the location. There are also loads of other events going on.
The montage at the top is based on a couple of images. The heath image is by Nicobobinus and the turbines are by jespis. Both are creative commons licensed, as is my montage.
Licensed under a 
The Blackheath Bugle 
If you’re interested in how much alternative energy we’re likely to need once oil and gas have run their course (and we’d like to not have the deaths of millions on our hands) then I’d suggest listening to this lecture, which is pretty compelling.
Don’t think a wind farm on the heath is going to be enough somehow…
Looks interesting – will have a listen. Here’s the link if you need to open it in iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=186908455
great post…I am listening now. I am planning to put a wind power in my farm once I get a grip on how these things work..:)
Building wind turbines is perfectly possible. It is not a task that should be taken lightly and you should do a great amount of studying. Including how to use the energy once you have created it.
Hugh Piggots books over all a good guide, they were created from the classes at Center of Alternate Energy in Europe, the design methods are little quarky but still effective.