Community Fund – Greener Leith – June Update

Last week members of Greener Leith went to view their newly installed met mast on the site in the Highlands where they propose to build 2 community wind turbines.  The mast will measure the wind strength over the next year  and if strong enough should make the building of two wind turbines feasible.  “Seeing the mast installed is very exciting and really brings home to us that the project is underway” said Carolyn Bell one of Greener Leith’s directors.

 

The community wind project is in partnership with Pedal, a community group in Portobello and Scene, a company specialising in community energy generation projects    and consists of two x 74 meter high wind turbines  whose income of approximately £5-7 million over the next 20 years will go to benefit community projects in Inverness-shire, Portobello and Leith.

The met mast is a 60m SLX1 TMM  with meteorological instruments, sensors and a data recording & transmit system. This provides wind data monitoring, analysis and reports to enable the community groups to get accurate figures for income and carbon savings.

 

There were further celebrations for all concerned with the mast erection as it was the 1000th mast installed by the Company KONA.  Cake was enjoyed by all.

 

Planning for the Turbines will be applied for this summer with build in 2015. Meanwhile Greener Leith and Pedal have already started community consultations in Inverness and are looking to talk with the communities in Leith and Portobello to find out how best to use the income for local people.