Green energy trade body Scottish Renewables has today launched the Scottish Renewables Festival 2009 at its annual conference in Edinburgh.
The weekend of the 13-14 June will see wind farms, hydro power schemes and wood fuel power stations open up across the country, demonstrating their role in tackling climate change and delivering fuel security. Small scale community and household applications of solar power, wood heating, wind power and heat pumps will join some of the largest renewable energy installations in Europe as part of the festival programme. New technologies such as marine power will also be showcased over the weekend.
The festival is supported by a dedicated website http://www.renewablesfestival.com which will feature a full programme during from late April 2009 with details of participating projects and events.
A number of events have been confirmed: ScottishPower Renewables will open a major wind farm during the weekend, RWE n power renewables will open a hydropower project and Changeworks in Edinburgh will be demonstrating renewable energy that can be generated in the home.
Scottish Renewables board member Ray Hunter said, "The festival will give us the opportunity to mark our achievements with the public who have played such a key role in getting us to where we are today and will let them see the technologies in action at close-hand.
"Renewable energy has achieved a huge amount in a relatively short period of time in Scotland but in many ways we've only just begun. The public will be a key component in the development of renewables in the future and the festival will be a great way of continuing to celebrate our achievements with them."
The Scottish Renewables Festival builds on previous ‘wind weekends' in Scotland which opened wind farms to the public. The festival will continue with a major focus on wind power but, for the first time, includes the breadth and diversity of all of Scotland's renewables.