Olympic Delivery Authority weighs up solar and biomass options after pulling plans for onsite wind turbine

The developer of London's Olympics Park has returned to the drawing board to find a suitable renewable energy system after this week scrapping high profile plans to install a wind turbine at the Stratford site.

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) admitted defeat over the planned turbine yesterday after its preferred turbine supplier withdrew from the project over fears it would struggle to comply with revised site safety rules.

Other suppliers had cited similar concerns and had also warned that the stringent timetable for the project was unlikely to be met.

The move will be seen as a blow to the London Olympics environmental credentials, but ODA chief executive David Higgins quickly insisted that it remains committed to delivering a green games and is already looking at finding other ways to generate renewable energy on the site.

"Our focus is now on researching a number of alternative renewable energy options across the Olympic Park site to help contribute to these targets and compliment the other state-of-the art new energy infrastructure we are building,” he said.

In particular, the ODA is known to be considering installing photovoltaic solar panels at locations around the Olympic Park, as well as a biomass combined heat and power (CHP) unit close to the sites planned Energy Centre. A final decision on the new renewable energy projects is expected this summer.

Renewable energy project advisors OwnEnergy welcomed the decision to cancel the wind turbine, which had previously been criticized as a white elephant that would struggle to deliver significant energy yields given the site's urban location.

The company advised the ODA to instead take advantage of the recently-launched feed-in tariff scheme to install of solar panels, predicting that it may even be able to find an investor that would pay for the installation.

"The ODA is right to scrap the wind turbine as the wind speed is inadequate in that area," said Ownergy marketing director Scott McLean in a statement. "Under the feed-in tariffs... it is likely that third party investors could be prepared to finance the scheme in return for the guaranteed tariff income for the next 25 years. This would allow the ODA to meet its renewable energy targets without having to fund the installations."

Greentechmedia