West Riding Sailing Club, Wakefield, Yorkshire

WRSC wins green award!

West Riding Sailing Club has won yet more funding this year, this time to improve it’s renewable energy use. By using the award to install green energy measures the club hopes to reduce it’s annual energy spend and improve it’s facilities.

The grant for improving sustainable energy supply has been awarded by a group of bodies, making it a sizeable amount. The money will be poured into the club’s greatest asset, the lake. The objective is to reduce the amount of weed within the lake and the solution is unique. The answer is to increase the water temperature between 5 to 10 degrees, allowing the introduction of grass carp. These herbivores will reduce the amount of weed to a minimum amount.

The award will be used to install a combination of ground source and solar heating. Over 10411km of pipe will be laid beneath the adjacent fields and around the shores before disappearing into the lake to heat it. Early estimates suggest the lake temperature could be raised to a maximum of 25 degrees in summer months.

Over the years many suggestions have been discussed by the management committee to raise the water temperature, from taking buckets of water home to sit in airing cupboards, to installing a series of kettle like elements within the lake, all with their obvious pit falls. This award solves all the issues of weed control with the fringe benefit of hot water to sail on negating the need for wetsuits and dry suits, cushioning around the lake from the flexible pipes and some warm water for the club’s showers.

The project is hoped to be completed in a year’s time.