House of Bure – Tripalium

Equipment installed

• Turbine: 3m60 Piggott
• Tower type: Guy wire tower
• Tower height: 15 m then 12 m
• Grid tied turbine: SMA Windy Boy (1700), SMA Windy Boy Protection Box (WBA400)

Energy Demand

• All the electricity from the wind turbine is used by the House of Bure, an organisation against the development of nuclear
• Bure is a place where the nuclear industry is willing to put the nuclear waste by 500 m underground.
• Several associations bought a house in the village to protest against this but they were still buying their electricity from the national operator, EDF that produce electricity mostly from nuclear power plants.
• Tripalium financed, built and installed a turbine to give the house access to renewable energy. Since then, they are buying the rest of their electricity (the one that’s the turbine don’t make) from an alternative seller.

Financing

• The total project cost was 3600 euros for everything, including the tower, the turbine, the electronics and people’s work.
• This is abnormally cheap because it’s a political project. All the people that work on the turbine did it for free. The materials were bought without any merging.
• The 15 participating people brought something with them. The rest of the finance where brought by the Tripalium members through “crowfunding” inside our network.

Ownership & Management

• The turbine was offered by Tripalium to the House of Bure.
• The house is occupied all year long with at least one or two people during winter and a lot of people during summer.
• The people that live there are almost self-sufficient for maintenance. As they change frequently, Tripalium is helping when needed.

Problems & Solution

1. Distance from the neighbourhood & noise: Some neighbours came to visit us during the construction process (this is a rare event in this village!) and complained the morning after the installation about the noise. We propose to pay for better window. It ended up that people stop the turbine during the night.
2. The tower was higher than 12m: As it’s a sensible place, we lowered the tower at less than 12m following the legal height.
3. Maintenance: As the people move often, the knowledge is “lost”. We have to go there from times to times but it’s far from our members.
4. Poor production: There is no solution here but the poor production can be explained: The site is not very good and they stop the turbine every night. It is also foreseeable that sometimes the turbine stays off for more than just the night.

Highlights  

• This project is remarkable cause it’s a collective project that had a strong impact.
• The local people from the House of Bure did not know that we were coming. We financed the whole project by ourselves and through our network. It was their Christmas gift (and ours too)
• We bring some consistency to their project (green energy for a house facing the nuclear disaster). Almost all the people from Tripalium were here.
• Despite the poor production it’s enlighten the house (we can see it from far).