A FACTORY has helped students at a sixth form college to achieve an environmental first.
Workers at CU Phosco of Westgate, Cleckheaton, made a 20-kilowatt wind turbine, which has been put on the playing fields at Ashton Sixth Form College at Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester.
The college is believed to be the first in the North-West to have its own wind turbine.
It is only the second educational establishment in the country to fit a vertical axis wind turbine designed to produce renewable energy cost-effectively, cleanly and quietly.
The turbine will produce about a third of the electricity used each year by the college’s newest building, which houses a library and 15 classrooms.
It is part of the college’s plan to cut energy consumption by a tenth on the campus by 2011.
The turbine features an 11-metre tubular steel tower with vertical angled blades 4.5metres high.
CU Phosco is based at Ware, Hertfordshire.
It also has a factory at Coleford, Gloucestershire.
Its other products include CCTV masts, floodlighting, street lights, tunnel lights, street benches, litter bins and solar panel masts.
