engineering

Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine

Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine rather than just read about it. In short: The Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine, also known as the Ambition Community Energy Wind Turbine, is a community-owned wind turbine located in Avonmouth, Bristol, England, near the Seabank Power Station. It is situated beside the A403 road and Severn Estuary, just north of the Avonmouth Docks and Chittening industrial estate and south of Severn Beach, close to the boundary with South Gloucestershire.

Key takeaways

Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine, also known as the Ambition Community Energy Wind Turbine, is a community-owned wind turbine located in Avonmouth, Bristol, England, near the Seabank Power Station. It is situated beside the A403 road and Severn Estuary, just north of the Avonmouth Docks and Chittening industrial estate and south of Severn Beach, close to the boundary with South Gloucestershire. The wind turbine, which began operating in May 2023, serves to support the nearby Lawrence Weston subdivision by generating and selling electricity to the National Grid, where surplus revenue is then used to fund projects and infrastructure in the community. It's 150 metres (490 ft) in height, making it the tallest onshore wind turbine in England as well as the tallest structure in Bristol. Ambition Lawrence Weston (ALW), a community-led charity group dedicated to supporting the community of Lawrence Weston, formed the offshoot community interest company Ambition Community Energy (ACE) to facilitate the creation of the wind turbine. Planning for the Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine began in late 2016 with negotiations between ACE and the Bristol City Council. By 2020, the wind turbine project was approved by the council and the government, with funding for the project acquired the following year through loans and grants from organisations such as Thrive Renewables and the West of England Combined Authority (WECA). Construction of the Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine began in mid-2022 and was completed in early May the following year.

Background

In 2012, a group of Lawrence Weston residents led by Mark Pepper founded the grassroots charity Ambition Lawrence Weston (ALW) in an effort to improve the area for people to live and work due to recent decline in services. Over the following decade, ALW contributed to the protection of green spaces in the area. It also prevented a local youth centre from closure, later developing it into a community hub to help residents find employment. The charity also focused on developing local energy supplies for the community. ALW had also engaged with the Cold Home Energy Efficiency Survey Experts (CHEESE) group to explore ways to improve energy efficiency for homes, which resulted in the operation of a photovoltaic solar array and the development of a wind turbine. According to researcher Max Lacey-Barnacle, the Lawrence Weston housing estate, located in the northwest region of Bristol, has been described as being an area of "high deprivation". In a study published by the Bristol City Council (BCC) in 2015, the area was considered one of the most deprived areas of Bristol and was named as being one of the "most deprived 10% of areas in England". Additionally, the estate was noted for high unemployment, and limited amenities and access to green space, leading to the area garnering a reputation for being a "'neglected' area of [Bristol]." According to Pepper, some of the estate's 3,200 homes "suffer[ed] from poor insulation and low-energy efficiency" which led to impacts on fuel poverty. In 2015, UK Prime Minister David Cameron introduced a de facto ban on the construction of onshore wind turbines, claiming that the country had enough wind energy. Under the ban, wind projects would required unanimous local support in order for new wind turbines to be constructed. As a result, granted planning permissions for wind turbine projects declined as much as 97% across the United Kingdom between 2016 and 2021. In 2023, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had announced his pledge to lift the ban under his government. The following year, the new Labour government led by Keir Starmer lifted the ban on their first day, with a promise in their manifesto to double the country's onshore wind power by 2030, which is equivalent to 9,000 new wind turbines.

Concept and development

Concept The idea for a wind turbine owned by the Lawrence Weston community was first proposed in 2012 by local resident and retired aerospace engineer Roger Sabido, being considered by Ambition as the father of the project as a result. During an interview, Mark Pepper explained that the creation of Lawrence Weston's solar farm led to residents wanting future projects to benefit them financially, with Pepper stating this "lit the switch" to the wind turbine's development. In 2015, talks among residents where the idea of constructing a wind turbine was proposed in order to attract investment into the area. According to Pepper, the idea for the wind turbine was to deal with a "social injustice emergency" rather than a climate emergency due to the sentiment of neglect of Lawrence Weston among residents. However, Pepper further commented that whilst it wasn't the initial motivator for the project, he hoped people would become more aware about climate action and the climate crisis as a result of the project. Initial plans for the wind turbine wanted to have it directly send power to homes in Lawrence Weston, however, these plans were dropped after it was decided that the installation of transmission lines would have made the project too costly.

Development The project was primarily handled by Project Development Managers David Tudgey and Dr Charles R Gamble, with further assistance and support provided by ACE. The Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine project was kickstarted in 2016 after ALW received an Urban Community Energy Fund (UCEF) grant to investigate the legalities of taking on the creation of a wind turbine as well as whether there was community support for the project. Later that year, ACE began to develop an exclusivity agreement with the BCC for use of council land for the project, with ACE later entering the agreement in 2019 with one of the conditions of the agreement being that "the council not hold discussions with any third parties regarding the future of the chosen site". The agreement would then be signed in 2021.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine

In research: Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Avonmouth, Buildings and structures in Bristol, Energy infrastructure completed in 2023, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine in simple terms?

Why does Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lawrence Weston Wind Turbine.