26 Jul 2024
Batteries and butterflies – local nursery school visit Feeder Road battery project
Last week saw a group of pupils and staff from St Philip’s Marsh Nursery School visit our 20MW battery storage project on Feeder Road in Bristol. The nursery school is part of the local community who successfully fought against plans for a diesel generating station that was initially proposed for the site. It was thanks to the community’s efforts that developers proposed a clean energy battery storage project as an alternative. Local residents have been offered a stake in the project through shared ownership with Bristol Energy Cooperative. Thrive is the first commercial owner in the UK to offer shared ownership in a standalone battery project.
The visit kicked off with a short explanation of how battery storage projects work to support our everyday electricity needs – storing electricity when generation is abundant and exporting it back to the grid at times of peak usage.
Next, it was straight onto the treasure trail, where the children were given a range of items to find in the nature area on site, like bird boxes, insect boxes and flowers. It was great to see the children spotting a whole range of other different plants and insects too, from caterpillars and birds to bees and butterflies.
Thrive has introduced a number of biodiversity measures to protect and enhance nature on site. This includes installing bird, bat and invertebrate boxes, as well as planting trees, hedgerows, species rich grassland, shade scrub and native ferns to strengthen local habitat corridors and provide wildlife with food, nectar and pollen.
Alongside the treasure hunt, there was a nature themed craft activity where the pupils worked together to decorate a large cardboard butterfly with colourful tissue paper. The butterfly canvas was repurposed from an old Thrive exhibition stand.
“St Philip’s Marsh Nursery School are part of the community that enabled the battery project to go ahead in the first place, so it’s rewarding to be able to show them the project in operation. It’s brilliant to see the pupils engaging with the nature on site that’s just on the doorstep of the city centre – spotting a range of insects and plants and getting stuck into the craft activity. We’re passionate about providing opportunities for communities to learn about renewables and climate change, and educational visits like this are an important part of that.”
“Thanks so much for the visit to your beautiful nature garden. The children were all very excited and loved the activities. Spotting the caterpillars on the wild flowers was a very special moment. We now have a beautiful model butterfly in pride of place in our foyer. We are grateful that we have a neighbour who cares about our environment and the future of our children.”
Thank you to St Philip’s Marsh Nursery School for a brilliant visit – we hope you all enjoyed your time on site.