CREDIT – Centre for Renewable Energy at DkIT

Overview

(You can find news about the campus wind turbine here.)

In August 2005 we installed the world’s first large commercial wind turbine on a college campus. The turbine initially provided about half of Dundalk IT’s electricity needs; nowadays, with the expansion of the institute, it provides approximately a third of the electricity used on-campus. It is the first urban turbine in Ireland; we hope that many Irish towns will begin to address their energy needs in this way, at a local level.

Our Vestas V52. The buildings in the foreground are newer than the turbine. (See the bottom of this page for image copyright information.)

The turbine was complemented in 2009 by a 500 kWh flow battery allows energy to be stored on-campus. This project was funded by Enterprise Ireland which is funded by the Irish Government and part financed by the European Union under the National Development plan 2006-2013. Some notes about the machine:

1. The project received planning permission in June of 2003.
2. It is a Vestas V52 850kW rated wind turbine
3. Avoided the emission of approximately 900 tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2007 and a further 985 tonnes of CO2 in 2008.
4. The turbine tower is 60 metres tall, and the turbine blades are 25m long.
5. The maximum power output is 850kW, and the average power output is 200kW. The machine provides about a third of the electricity used on campus.
6. Total electricity production in 2008 was 1.8 million kWh.

The turbine also provides us with a research and training platform.

The campus wind turbine is managed by Raymond Byrne. Larry Staudt, the Centre’s founding director, had the original idea for the turbine; he also completed much of the hard work required to make it happen.

Further Information

There is a 2006 review of the wind turbine’s performance online at SEAI’s website. You can also view a video interview with Larry Staudt about the wind turbine.

Contact Raymond Byrne for more information.

Note on Copyright

The image of the DkIT Campus Wind Turbine, published by DkIT/CREDIT, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at http://www.credit.ie/. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://credit.ie/category/legals/.