[Project Log]
Week 1
As part of our initial meeting with Prof J Clarke we all met to hear what projects were on offer this year. After a brief description of all the possible projects we began to discuss with each other what areas particular interested us. After talks from all tutors, Project B (Information Pack on Renewables - Idiots Guide) seemed to hold most appeal, for the soon to be members of the group. The initial brief was;
To provide a Renewables Education resource for Scotland in association with the Scottish Environmental Energy Foundation (SEEF)
It had a potentially very
wide scope but the forming group seemed to be enthusiastic.
Our group consisted of members from four different disciplines;
Building Design Engineering,
Electrical / Mechanical Engineering,
Environmental Engineering and
Mechanical Engineering.
Our different backgrounds and interests led to our group being accepted and supervisors/tutors were assigned to each.
28 January 2002
Our supervisor was Dr A Grant, who we met with and he explained the nature
of the problem and we discussed a number of options for our project work.
It was agreed to hold weekly meetings with Dr Grant to monitor progress.
These would be held on Tuesday afternoons at 14.00am commencing on 5th
February.
29 January 2002 - Meeting with Chris Bronsdon (SEEF) at 2.00
Dr Grant had suggested that we meet with SEEF as quickly as possible to see how possible it was going to be to work alongside then and to establish if their 'agenda' was suitable for us to work towards. Chris explained huge variety of possible avenues to follow; he suggested three main topics upon which he would be keen to see developed.
Renewables in the Urban
Environment
Biomass
Wind
30 January 2002
The end of the week required us to meet on Friday to confirm the groups
and make sure everyone was happy. This week we had established that the
project had a huge scope and over the weekend we decided to establish
which areas to best target our literature review on.
Week 2
4 February 2002
We all met on Monday morning keen to get started on our literature review,
the main target in our minds was to keep our information specific to Scotland,
and establish;
" Relevant existing policy in place, and also
" Target key renewables for background reading
It was intended to look at the key ideas suggested by SEEF alongside some of our own particular areas of interest and base the literature review around;
Wind - on and offshore.
Biomass - industrial / domestic.
Urban - hybrid PV / ducted wind turbine / passive solar design.
Policy - Renewables Obligation (Scotland) / European, Local Planning and
Legislation.
Misc - tidal / CHP
5 February 2002
Meeting Andy Grant 2.00, we talked with him regarding our intentions to
perform the critical review to establish the state of play and to deliver
an introductory guide to Renewables in Scotland. This was to be split
into eight sections, of which we each were gong to review 2 particular
fields.
Policy & Biomass - Marianna
Wind & Connection - Craig
Energy from Waste and Water - Bob
Solar and Coppicing - Bruce
6 February 2002
An introductory course was held in the Graham Hills building on basic
web-site design and HTML. This was a very worthwhile exercise as most
of us had no experience in web authoring and were quite relieved to see
that in was not 'rocket science' and we could all contribute to the website
in some way or another.
8th February 2002 - CRIT - our first one
First 'Crit', involving a formal presentation of our Group, the participants and their qualifications, background experience, etc. and our ideas, what we were undertaking to do and our plans for the following weeks. 'Crits' were to be held each Friday, and we would present every alternate week.
For our first 'crit' as a group went reasonably well. One main question emerged as to how to interest our targeted audiences.
Why would Teenagers, Professionals, MSP's be interested in Renewables?
Week 3
In response to the question posed at our last 'crit' we were keen to establish what levels of information would be best suited for our varying targeted audiences.
1. The introductory beginners
guide - entry level
2. Information Packs targeted at Professionals - focusing on homeowners,
landowners, the city and what they can do specifically.
3. Policy type guide - demonstrating what other countries have been doing
8 February 2000
Much of this week was spent contacting people to establish the field of
play;
1. Web searches to try to
establish what information already existed regarding Renewables that could
be adapted or referenced for our introductory guide to Scottish Renewables.
2. Sending away for existing 'Renewable Education' packs to perform critical
review
3. Getting in touch with companies in Scotland or North England that dealt
with renewable technologies.
Information overload!!
The web has more information that you could think possible regarding renewable
technologies. However our information packs are not proving to be as helpful.
11 February 2002
We met with SEEF to discuss our initial findings. We proposed two initial
deliverables;
1. Tailor the wide range
of general renewable information to be Scotland specific and to form part
of our Introductory Guide to Renewable Energy.
2. Keep a Website Database of all the web addresses we look at. This already
extensive list can prove an important point of reference for the future.
13 February 2002 - BRE East Kilbride
BRE Scottish laboratories in East Kilbride where we were shown Test Cells which form part of a European-wide research programme, and the variety of uses to which they are adapted.
15 February 2002
CRIT - observing
2.00pm 'Crit' session, it was stressed to everyone that the presentations
and skills had to be improved and a cohesive common style adopted by each
Group.
Summary
Most of the week was spent of individual research regarding the introductory
guide.
We just remembered that at our 'crit' it was suggested that we get some
input from teachers and pupils as background to education resource.
Week 4
18 February 2002
This week has been crucial for the theoretical review. Everybody in the
group seems to know about the different parts they are looking at, and
the group members seems to be focused.
We already have a huge number of websites, and it is still growing!, to for our Website Database. Most of the information requested is finding it ways to us.
The individual parts of the Introductory Guide were beginning to come together and it was becoming clearer what to focus our project around. Idiots Guide
19 February 2002
During our meeting with Dr A Grant we planned how to report our findings
from the literature review at this weeks presentation. Simple but effective;
1. What we have achieved to date ( identify deficiency )
2. What we are now going to do ( our innovation )
3. How we are going to do this ( set of 'broad' renewable guides )
20 February 2002 - Lighthouse
Trip
As part of our field trip programme we visited the "Lighthouse"
in Glasgow city centre, designed originally by Charles Rennie Macintosh,
refurbished and extended by Page and Park Architects as part of Glasgow
1999 'City of Architecture'.
This viewing gallery is heated and lit by renewable resources. The south facing external facade incorporates PV-panels, and there are some ducted wind turbines on the edge of the roof with further PV panels mounted on their body. This demonstration project tried to demonstrate the potential of small-scale renewables and also highlighted the lack of understanding regarding the installation - The builders tried to nail the PV cells to the wall! also project
21 February 2002 - Met with
SEEF to establish to discuss our proposals.
We suggested just trying to take ALL our initial EIGHT topics to a certain
level of understanding - essentially our almost completed Introductory
Guide, and then extend the depth of certain 'key' technologies to take
into account feasibility, economic viability and current barriers regarding
our specific choices.
The discussion proved very worthwhile and we soon discovered some re-thinking was necessary. Our intention in their view still had to wide a scope - we were trying to 'spread' ourselves to thinly. We needed to narrow our focus in order to achieve the necessary depth of understanding. We went away with a clear picture of what we were doing and how to present our ideas at tomorrows 'crit'.
22 February 2002
After our talk with SEEF we decided to 'rethink our strategy. Our intention
was to keep WIND energy as the main focus to our website as wind technology
is one of the well-developed technologies in Scotland and has attracted
a lot of public attention - and opinion.
On a more positive note this helped us fine-tune our presentation and we developed a template for our presentations that was to be used for the rest of the 'crits' and also our website.
This week's presentation was OK. Nevertheless, improvement is still needed.
It will be necessary to get better at answering the audience's questions.
Week 5
25 February 2002
We were still trying to chase up some Renewable Education packs to complete
our review to check the amount of information available to teachers and
pupils, some of these had arrived with very general information.
Monday mornings had been established as the best time to contact people;
Education - We were all during the rounds with our old Physics teachers to establish what place Renewables had in the current curriculum - Interesting phone calls, very little time allowed for Renewables (only 1 lesson - 40 minutes of curriculum is allocated). This is only as part of discussion of energy sources - we can get energy from sum and wind type stuff, not how we can use them or where they can be used.
Teacher expressed problem with letting kids loose on Internet - there was too much information available - now where does that sound familiar!
Any Information Resource - perhaps we are directing interested readers not producing a pack - would work best if it directed users to key information or provided questions that required to be answered.
Professionals - Bruce also contacted Fiona Sinclair - Architects regarding an innovative photovoltaic installation on housing at Partick. The project was to provide electricity for the door entry systems. The system was not yet up and running
27 February 2002
The most useful information pack to date arrived from the National Energy
Foundation
www.greenenergy.org.uk
28 February 2002 - Meeting
with Cameron Johnstone
With Chris Bronsdon unavailable for the day we met with Cameron Johnstone
who provided us with some very valuable insights - warned against going
down the line of an education pack for schools as this would be subject
to rigorous checks.
Week 6
5 March 2002 - Meeting with
Dr A Grant
Dr Grant expressed concern that our objectives were not yet coming across
as clearly defined and it was important to make them apparent at our 'crit'
this week. We discussed how the beginners guide was taking shape and was
nearly finished. We discussed the layout for the web and what to do for
the project ahead.
6 March 2002 - Glenalmond
Street, Shettleston
A unique sustainable housing project which combines solar and geothermal
energy to providing heating and hot water.
7 March 2002
Bruce and Craig had began
to look at the Urban Scale in more detail, completing a number of tasks
1. Compiling Scottish Database - illustrating our 'Starting Point'
How many people lived in Scotland, how many houses
How much electricity was consumed, how much carbon dioxide was emitted.
2. Work also began on examining the potential of various renewable technologies in the urban environment - Passive Solar, PV, Solar Collectors, Ducted wind turbines.
Mariana and Bob had began
to look at the Large Scale in more detail, identifying a number of tasks
to be discussed with SEEF
3. Current Status of Renewable's in Scotland
4. Policy comparison of Scotland with other countries
As a group we had completed
our review of our education packs.
Marianna had started a database on Microsoft Access for our website review.
The 'rough' format of our Renewable's guide was taking shape.
8 March 2002 - 'Crit'
Our third 'crit' - talked to much about the 'process.
Why did we not show our deliverables at the presentation?
The crit was reasonably successful as the audience highlighted some constructive points, which we will consider.
9 March 2002 - Teacher meeting with Ross
Main outcome of meeting confirmed Cameron Johnstone's thoughts that an education pack would be very complex. We should aim to provide an information resource
Working at the weekend - that's dedication for you
Week 7
During this week the team
concentrated on the previous 'crit' shortfalls.
Re-defining project title - we could not provide an education pack as
this would require huge input from teachers - teachers would prefer a
resource that they could use to direct children on the web - OUR DATABASE
provides the perfect internet bibliography
12 March 2002 - Meeting
with SEEF
Chris was expressing concern about the fact he had not seen any of the
beginners guide, we decided to put it on our website and he could review
it and give some suggestion on how to improve it. The information was
put on the website and became available for public viewing
The Scottish database was
coming together which meant we had our starting point to fill the gap
of knowledge between renewable energy and environment.
Energy efficiency can save money and reduce carbon dioxide emissions
Demonstrate this through worked examples - Utilise real data from data logger on James Weir roof recording irradiance values.
Use this to perform real equations for PV possibilities and Solar Collector feasibility'
13 March 2002 - Time Capsule
Ice, water and fun is an ideal description of this modern leisure facility.
CHP plant providing heat and electricity
15 March 2002
Our website is ONLINE
Seeing the web page up and running was very encouraging however we also have seem a few problems with text, pictures etc that need to be sorted.
Week 8
20 March 2002 - Hagshaw Hill Windfarm
This farm is a collection of 29 wind turbines of 600MW each. This project was built in two sections, following two different contracts awarded to Scottish Power under the SRO. This was an informative visit, and most people were interested to get an insight into this renewable resource with a great future.
As part of our look at urban renewable's, we are looking at energy use in the home conscious and unconscious 'standby electricity' - created two excel worksheets to demonstrate typical household electricity consumption.
This provides householders with information of how much electricity they use how this can be reduced.
By reducing electricity consumption we can increase the penetration of Renewables
22 March 2002
The feedback from our 'crit' was again reasonably positive
We need to make sure that we get across our contribution and make sure that we highlight our innovation.
Week 9
2 April 2002
3 April 2002 - Longannet Power Station
This week's visit was to Longannet Power Station in Fife, owned by Scottish Power. This is a coal-fired plant, which is located next to a coalmine - which flooded the week before we arrived. This is a large station, with a power output of about 2.4GW (4x600MW) on full-load. The tour was well organised and helped give a full understanding of the station.
Week 10
7th April
Discussion with Cameron Johnston regarding policy. Policy is a minefield
and we need to be careful to focus on something and not spread ourselves
too thinly. Decided to study energy policy that has been passed that has
affected renewable energy in three countries: Scotland, Denmark and the
USA.
Most of these week spent
carrying out and checking our calculations to make sure they are correct.
Urban Section almost completed demonstrating lots of information
Is it easy to understand?
Website is getting very heavy and massive - 75 pages checking
Week 11
15th April - Policy
Meeting with Chris Bronsdon to discuss policy. Developed a methodology
with this discussion in mind to study policy by looking at four areas:
Economic, Environmental, and Legislative.
Mariana is working all hours
to get all our information onto the web page.
Policy is coming together. Add Research and Development to study topics
for policy.
Bruce and Craig polishing up urban section, small scale and working on
the PowerPoint presentation - our last presentation was our worst.
The presentation was reasonably well delivered, however we did not show
our product at all, trying to put a limit on the words on our slides -
put focus on images to catch attention.
Week 12
22 April 2002
Meeting with SEEF to discuss
policy: change study areas to Economic, Legislative, Research and Development,
and Environmental Drivers.
Every thing is still falling into place no major panics - as yet!
Wait till Wednesday night
Trip to Cruachan Hydro Scheme - very interesting hydro station as it was
first of its kind. Not intrusive to view of landscape as it is almost
completely encased in the hillside. Bus trip over 1 mile down into hillside
through tunnel blasted away. Inside the mountain is enough room in the
main chamber to house a 7-story building.
30 April 2002
Meeting with Dr Grant to show presentation and get last minute advice.
Suggestions of a few 'wacky' quotes and images to stimulate laughter and
interest - some but not go overboard
1 May 2002
Working on final clean up of presentation plus trial run to check timing,
handovers etc.
