The Energy Group is putting the finishing touches to next year's programme which will be published next month.

We had a stall at the WEN Gorgeously Green day where there was a lot of interest from people about their carbon
footprints. We measured about 20 with the lowest at around a tonne per adult and the highest close to 7 tonnes.

Linda Lever and Charles Mossman are liaising with Devon Warm Zones and leafletted in the High Street on October Farmers Market day. We also had a recently graduated student from QECC, Sophie Gale, who is talking to the head of science about co-operating with us regarding the use of the smart meters at QE.

Tom Langdon-Davies had a meeting with Matthew Spencer of Regen SW to explore better ways to get community benefit from renewable projects.

Ecotricity have managed to get a project in Torridge District approved by the council, the first time a large wind installation has been approved in Devon without a very expensive appeal.

Crediton Town Council has donated £125 to the Energy Group to purchase Smart Electrcity meters.

The plan is to distribute these meters to local schools for pupils to take home and monitor the energy usage of common household appliances such as kettles, toasters, computers etc to encourage people to 'switch off' and use appliances more responsibly.

Lets get the kids to nag their parents on this important issue!!

In an attempt to keep your minds bubbling with local energy ideas (!), here are a few news snippets....

PV Arrays

I've done a comparison (corrected for the slightly different sized arrays) between the output of my own PV array and that of Richard Bell at Cadeleigh, for the period Sept 2007 to the present day. It shows significant day-to-day difference in generated output between the two sites, totalling some 429 units (kWH) in that time:-

Richard's in Cadeleigh  = 2274
Mine in Sandford        = 1845

I have more detail if anyone's interested, but it shows how crucial location and roof orientation can be! We are less than 10 km apart, so would have experienced roughly the same weather!

Beech Hill Wind Turbine

The wind turbine at the Beech Hill community (Morchard Bishop) has just clocked up its 3,000th kWH, and I'm told everyone's rather pleased with its performance. Even in the very strong winds of a while back, it apparently did not shut itself down by turning side-on to the wind, but feathered its blades a tad and kept on going.

Clear Skies?

I was very struck by this fine picture of Flagstaff, Arizona. When I first arrived here 35 years ago I can remember dazzlingly bright Milky Way nights. Now (even assuming you get a clear night ) light pollution means that today's kids round here will never see our Galaxy that way unless we do something. Can you remember when you last saw a cloud (as per the picture) partially illuminated by starlight?  It may be stretching our terms of reference** a bit, but I wonder if another part of the Energy Group's activities should be to lobby for less public and private illumination, both to save energy and to reduce light pollution? After all, everyone pays through Council Tax for all the inefficient and excessive public illumination. Just a thought!

Mike Brett