The RES Group (Renewable Energy Systems) is a global renewable energy company which has been active in the renewable energy industry for over 30 years. Its core business is to develop, construct and operate large-scale, grid-connected renewable energy projects worldwide for commercial, industrial and utility clients. RES is active in the wind (onshore and offshore wind) and solar energy sectors and is increasingly focused on the transition to a

low-carbon economy A low-carbon economy (LCE) or decarbonised economy is an economy based on energy sources that produce low levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. GHG emissions due to human activity are the dominant cause of observed climate change since the mi ...

providing transmission, energy storage and demand side management expertise.

History

Renewable Energy Systems was started in 1982 as part of the

Sir Robert McAlpine Sir Robert McAlpine Limited is a family-owned building and civil engineering company based in Hemel Hempstead, England. It carries out engineering and construction in the infrastructure, heritage, commercial, arena and stadium, healthcare, educa ...

group of engineering and construction companies. Its early years were spent in researching various designs for commercial wind turbines, including work on a

vertical axis wind turbine A vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) is a type of wind turbine where the main rotor shaft is set transverse to the wind while the main components are located at the base of the turbine. This arrangement allows the generator and gearbox to be ...

(VAWT) model as well as the now more widely used

horizontal axis A Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, measured in ...

(HAWT) units. The company built its first commercial

wind farm A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used Wind power, to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundre ...

at Carland Cross in Cornwall in 1992, using 15

Vestas Vestas Wind Systems A/S is a Danish manufacturer, seller, installer, and servicer of wind turbines that was founded in 1945. The company operates manufacturing plants in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, India, Italy, Romania, the Uni ...

turbines, each of 400 kW capacity. In December 1998, the first commercial 1MW wind turbine to be designed and built in the UK was installed by RES at Slievenahanaghan, Co Antrim. In 2001 the company built the then-largest wind farm in the world at King Mountain in Texas, using 214 Bonus turbines of 1.3 MW capacity. In 2005, RES won a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Sustainable Development category. More recently the company has been active in the developing offshore UK wind power market. It has supported the delivery of both onshore and offshore engineering works for the Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farms off the coast of Lincolnshire in the UK. The RES Group has now developed and/or constructed over 100

wind farms Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...

worldwide, with more than 12 GW of capacity. In addition, it has projects on its books totaling several thousand

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...

worldwide, at various stages of development. The group manages the assets of

The Renewables Infrastructure Group The Renewables Infrastructure Group () is a large British investment trust dedicated to investments in assets generating electricity from Renewable energy, renewable sources. Established in 2013, the company is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index ...

, a company involved in onshore wind and solar energy in Britain, France and Ireland, that floated on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

in 2013 to raise up to GBP 300 million. The RES Group has offices across the UK, Europe, North America, and Australia.

UK Headquarters Building

Since late 2003 RES has been based at its low carbon headquarters building at Beaufort Court,Beaufort Court - low carbon building
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Kings Langley Kings Langley is a village, former Manorialism, manor and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, north-west of Westminster in the historic centre of London and to the south of the Chiltern Hills. It now forms part o ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

in the UK. This unique site, centered on the old '

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

' style Ovaltine Egg Farm building originally constructed in 1929, uses electricity supplied from its own 225 kW

V29

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

and from on-site

photovoltaic Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially us ...

panels. Heat comes from 170 m² of

solar thermal Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors. Solar thermal collectors are classified by the United Sta ...

panels and from a

biomass Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...

boiler. A

miscanthus ''Miscanthus'', or silvergrass, is a genus of African, Eurasian, and Pacific Island plants in the grass family, Poaceae. ; Species * ''Miscanthus changii'' Y.N.Lee – Korea * ''Miscanthus depauperatus'' Merr. – the Philippines * ''Miscanthus ...

energy crop is grown on 5 hectares of the site, whilst cooling is produced on demand using pumped ground water.

References

The following sites give further information on the Beaufort Court location.

External links

{{Authority control Companies based in Three Rivers District Engineering companies of the United Kingdom Renewable energy in the United Kingdom Wind power companies of the United Kingdom

History

UK Headquarters Building

See also

References

External links