LearnRenewables Ltd. was established in 2013 by two researchers at the Centre for Renewable Energy at Dundalk IT. Over the years a number of schools and teachers had visited the Dundalk IT wind turbine and it occurred to us that there were no high quality teaching kits or materials available in Ireland to inform students about the increasingly high profile area of wind energy. We looked around Europe and the world and found our answer in Minneapolis, USA, with the KidWind Project. Michael Arquin and his team had been developing exactly what we were looking for and we were fortunate to be able to welcome Joe Rand to our first training in 2011 where he was able to bring their great kits and expertise to our local situation.
Since that first course we have been very fortunate to have industry sponsorship at every step of the way.
Energia Renewables have supported us in the Dublin area since 2012 and we are happy to have their support again in 2015 for our Secondary school teacher course on July 6th to 8th, and we look forward to you all meeting Trish and the Energia team on our site visit.
Our longest associated sponsor was Bord Gais energy, with Liz Casey supporting us from 2011 to 2014 when Bord Gáis’ renewable portfolio moved to Brookfield Renewables. We hope to be able to continue with Brookfield in a targetted manner in the Cork area from 2015.
We were fortunate to have Department of Education and Skills funded Wind SkillNets support in association with the Irish Wind Energy Association in the early years and we were able to visit all corners of Ireland with our courses in 2012 and 2013 with co-sponsorship from SkillNet, ABO Wind, Eirgrid, RES Group and the aforementioned Bord Gáis Energy and Energia Renewables. We thank them all for their support and you can see some photos on our Previous Courses Page.
After five years of teacher courses we are still enthused by the interest and curiosity shown by both teachers and students for the topic of wind energy and for renewables in general, and hopefully we can help all those interested in wind energy to learn more about this complex and technologically advanced industry.
Paul and Ray.