The RES Group (Renewable Energy Systems) is a company operating in the global

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

sector for over 40 years. The company specializes in developing, constructing, and operating large-scale renewable energy projects that are connected to the grid. These projects cater to commercial, industrial, and utility clients. RES's primary areas of activity include both onshore and

offshore wind energy Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea. There are higher wind speeds offshore than on land, so offshore farms generate more electricity per amount of c ...

, as well as

solar energy Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an essenti ...

. In recent years, the company has increasingly emphasized supporting 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 ...

. This includes focusing on transmission, energy storage, and demand-side management solutions.

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 totalling 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, the headquarters of RES have been situated at Beaufort Court,

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 ...

, UK.Beaufort Court - low carbon building
/ref> The site, occupying the renovated 'Arts and Crafts' style building of the former Ovaltine Egg Farm, built in 1929, integrates several

sustainable energy Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as greenh ...

solutions. These include electricity generation from an onsite

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

solar photovoltaic A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and co ...

panels, heating through

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 a

biomass boiler Biomass heating systems generate heat from biomass. The systems fall under the categories of: *direct combustion, * gasification, * combined heat and power (CHP), *anaerobic digestion, * aerobic digestion. Benefits of biomass heating The use of ...

, and cooling using pumped groundwater. The headquarters also includes an area for growing

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 ...

, a type of energy crop, reflecting the company's use of

sustainable Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...

practices.

References

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