The Britwind H15 Class IV wind turbine was erected at RAL in early 2018, and commissioned on the 22nd February by Britwind Ltd . It is a modern horizontal-axis up-wind machine with a tower height of 18m and a 3-bladed rotor with a 13.1m diameter, and has a rated power of 12kW. The blades are fixed pitch and the rotor operates at variable speed, optimising energy production at low wind speeds.

The Britwind’s power curve reflects the fact the turbine has been optimised for low wind speeds : cut-in wind speed (around 3 - 4 m/s, when the wind turbine starts to generate), the rated wind speed (about 12 m/s above which the output power is regulated to the rated power), and the cut-out wind speed (about 14 m/s when the wind turbine starts to be shut down for safety and to avoid excessive stress).

It is anticipated that the presence of a modern state-of-the-art wind turbine will enable ERU’s long record of wind energy research to continue – particularly as the subject of energy storage becomes ever more topical. The electricity generated by the turbine is fed into the RAL grid, but the turbine has extensive instrumentation which enables key parameters (such as power production, current, voltage) to be measured at frequent intervals and data signals fed to energy storage projects. The turbine was initially used in a Green Ammonia project - in which a controller attempts to optimise ammoniaproduction, storage and use whilst taking into account the intermittent wind generated power.