Chris Rowland - OVESCO
In the morning we visited
a commercial solar thermal power station at the Oberhof Sports Gym.
Here 50,000 litres of water is heated by a solar thermal façade made up
of 100 flat plate collectors vertically mounted into the aluminium
frame. This is a cross county ski resort high up in the mountains and we
wondered if they made use of reflected sun light off the snow. So
perhaps Wave Leisure in Lewes could heat its water for most of the year
simply using the sun? Lewes District Council has already invested in PV
for the swimming pool, but they still have roof space for solar thermal! |
Diagram taken from SINUSSTROM web site www.sinusstrom.com
|
We asked the mayor a few questions:
- What is the main aim of the project? Public access to new technology to show the potential for a low carbon future.
- Did the town get grant funding? No, they chose to use their own money and did not want to be restricted by grant funding rules.
- Was a large utility company involved? No, they wanted to be independent of the large utilities and want to be in control of their own energy supply.
- Is the project financially viable at this moment in time? No, the cars and batteries are currently too expensive, but the mayor believes they are paving the way for the future of their town and a time when they can supply much of their own energy needs using an integrated community owned transport system and energy supply.
At this
point I have mention that OVESCO now uses Common Wheels, the car share
scheme set up by LDC for anyone in Lewes to use. Common Wheels have some
electric cars, but not yet in Lewes. So would it be possible to build a
Smart Grid in Lewes where electric cars were charged by the community
owned PV panels around the town (Harveys Depot, Priory School, Wave
Leisure, LFC and LDC’s Council offices) for use by the public? Perhaps
this is a debate Transition Town Lewes could start with the Town Council
and LDC?
This trip is about technical solutions, but it also
raises questions about powering down and sharing within our community.
Ask yourself why many families have two cars or more and is that really
financially or environmentally sensible? Why not take a big step forward
and have one car or a fold up bike and use a car club when you need
those extra four wheels, because this is one way we can build a low
carbon community for the future. So a look at the Common Wheels web site
or find out if you have a local care share scheme and just consider
trying it out! Then ask you council if you can have access to a
community electric car.
Oberhof Sports Gym http://www.thueringen.de/th9/tmblv/bau/shkv/sp/
Common Wheels http://www.co-wheels.org.uk/
Zella-Mehlis www.zella-mehlis.de
Lee Rose - Norfolk Solar
Jake Rendle-Worthington - Solar Aid
Today was something of a more relaxed day. The morning be filled with a trip of our own choice, I choose to go to the Weapons and Motorbike museums in Suhl. Suhl has been at the centre of weapons manufacture for over 500 years making everything from crossbows, to muskets to AK47s and hunting rifles, and the museum has no shortage of examples. The motorbike museum, although not quite so impressive holds some samples of cars and bikes unknown to the west, such as the East German version of BMW – EMW.
After lunch we were given a reception by the Mayor of Zella Mehlis, who had exceptional (American) English. He very proudly introduced us to the Smart Grid and Electric car charging pool developed just for the town. Wolfgang Schwart of Sinusstrom who developed and installed the smart grid gave us a presentation on how it worked. Basically a 130kW PV system connected to a 68kWh battery bank, especially developed DC car charging system and a CHP plant all on the DC side of the system is connected through an inverter to a former 100 bed hospital and the Grid on the AC side. The hospital had changed use, but was still run and owned by the municipality, but only 10% of grid electricity that was used before is used now. The electric vehicles are completely charged by the system and are available for use by doctors and for hire by the general public, there is a fleet of 4. 60% of energy generated by the PV is self used. An amazing system, but at 600,000 Euro not cheap and not financially viable, but someone has to try these things out so that they can be modified to become viable and hopefully one day commonplace.
Andrea Berardi - Funky Renewables
In the afternoon we had the pleasure to visit a local pearl: a very "smart" building almost entirely powered by renewable sources. It is one of the few grid connected sites that makes use of batteries as well, (68kWh storage capacity) and it can therefore also operate in stand-alone mode. The main components are:- 07 kWp PV system, roof mounted.
- CHP unit: 15 kW electric output / 30 kW thermal output, mainly used in winter for heating, it can compensate the decreased generation of the PV array during the rainiest seasons.
- 5 kW wind farm, helpful to satisfy the base load requirements.
However we can find the most interesting part in the parking lot next to the building, where we can find four electric cars recharged by above-mentioned power generation systems. We tested the electric cars in a small test drive on the streets of the village. The performances are comparable to a common city car and the car performs well even uphill. The total absence of noise, emissions and the awareness of travelling for free give a special touch to the driving experience. Unluckily I do not have much technical data about the cars, but we know that they can travel about 100 ÷ 130 km per charge.
John Shaw - Burnley College
After breakfast, the group split into two with one group vivid ting the mountain park whilst we went to Suhl's museums of Weapons manufacturing and Motorbikes and cars. Dirk again made sure we were looked after and he kindly paid the entry fee to both museums. The weapons museum was fascinating... Suhl has had gun and weapon manufacturing for hundreds of years...even Napoleon recognised the importance of the local craftsmen when he asked them to repair 40,000 of his damaged rifles whilst retreating from Russia in 1812 ...there are many beautiful examples of hunting and military rifles...presented in clean glass cases. The only disappointment was that we could not spend more time there, as we wanted to visit the motorbike museum too. In fact it's worth mentioning that both museums were exceptionally clean and tidy, as were the many visits we've had so far... Germany is a very clean and tidy and proud country...I wish I could say the same for my home town!!!
In fact there were many fine examples of simson cars and a funny one from 1955 ...a EMW..!!. Built here in the East and remarkably like a 1933 BMW... I wonder why?? There was also a beauty called a WartBurg... A red open top 2 seater that had all of us mouth watering... What a shame that they are no longer available ... Unless you're a multi millionaire of course!
We returned to BCS for lunch, our afternoon visit to the Rathaus (Town Hall) were Herr Gerlachwelcomed us, asked if we were enjoying our tour and introduced the group to the Burgermeister, Richard Rossel. We were invited into the council meeting room and Herr Rossal, who spoke very good English, proudly introduced the project we had come to see, along with his colleague from SINUSSTROM... Herr Schwartz. The mayor of Zella-Mehlis has developed , along with SINUSSTROM, a localised smart grid system...whose prime function is to introduce the possibilities of further uses of solar energy. In simple terms, a local health centre has been refurbished and has an installation of PV panels...generating energy that is stored in batteries San charges electric cars that the local populace can hire!... It's very innovative and, although not maximising profits, its earning enough to pay back with within 6 years and is a cutting edge way of ensuring "buy-in" form local energy users and suppliers
We visited the battery store, a garage type building, located behind the Rathaus about 100 metres up the hill, and we all surprised to discover that despite their capacity ... They only occupied as much space as a wardrobe!! We then had the opportunity to drive a car and I volunteered to drive a converted small car...it was manual and left hand drive... I haven't drove manuals for about 10 years and so it was no surprise that I crunched the gears ha ha...much to the amusement of my colleagues ...thankfully Dirk was in the car with me to give direction and advice..my colleague David was in the back...much to his amusement !
One underway, it was surprisingly nippy and coped with the steep hills and tight corners easily... But I still couldn't understand why not an automatic?? And no power steering!!! Still it was a very good drive and I have started to change my mind about the limitations of electric vehicles .. For town and city driving they will be ideal...
The purpose built Mitsubishi was a better option, being both automatic and power steered...
All in all it was a very good visit and we thanked our hosts and returned to BCS
David Aspin - Burnley College
Today we drove to the town of Suhl wher we visited a couple of museums, the Special museum of small arms made in Suhl and the adjacent Automobile museum
The Special museum of small arms included numerous displays located over three floors covering the following:
- Geology
- Workshop
- Military fire arms
- Porcelain
- Hunting guns
- Sporting guns
- Special exhibition
The workshop facility provides four apprenticeships per year covering the art of a Gunsmith. This is the only facility in Germany which provides this. Indeed there were two apprentices working in the workshop undertaking restoration work at the time of the visit.
The second museum that we visited in the morning session was the Automobile Museum which contains splended examples of vintage cars and motorbikes. Famous makes such as BMW, EMW, Triumph and Simson are all displayed.
All of the exhibits have been painstakingly restored and are very well presented. There is also several information boards which present historical information and key facts in relation to some of the more famous examples.
In the afternoon the group visited the Town Hall in Zella – Mellis where we met the Mayor, Richard Rossel. The CO of Sinusstron was in attendance and delivered a presentation in relation to a local pilot project smart grid and e-mobility ( LSIM – Lokal Solar Innovation Mobil).
Tom Broughton - Transition Town Chichester
Oberhof Skisportshalle and Sportgymnasium. Is this like wanting to eat strawberries at Christmas? Cross-country skiing in summer!
After seeing some really impressive carbon saving
technologies on our trip to Germany, it was incongruous to
discover the Oberhof Skisportshalle. This indoor cross
country skiing facility boasts two rotary screw compressors
with an output of 620 KW to provide cooling for the entire
hall. It wasn’t possible to get the data, but it wouldn’t be
surprising that the 1MW solar farm that we visited at
Viernau wouldn’t be able to supply the annual energy that
this sports hall consumes. 
