Powered by People aims to engage visitors in conversations around energy fairness, innovation, and community impact.
“People often feel disconnected or even disillusioned about renewable energy due to rising energy costs,” said Katy Firth, Stromness Museum’s Climate Change Exhibitions and Outreach Officer: “This exhibition brings the conversation back to the people who have made and continue to make Orkney a remarkable place for renewables, from the small scale household level, to community level, to ‘world first’ pioneering projects.”
The exhibition features a fascinating array of artefacts, many generously loaned by members of the Orkney Renewable Energy Forum. These include rare and historically significant items, such as the first subsea cable that connected Burray and South Ronaldsay to the public electricity supply in 1954.
Some large-scale objects include a Lucas Freelite – a turbine seen quite commonly on farms in Orkney in the first half of the 20th Century – displayed next to a tidal turbine blade, visually demonstrating a century of renewable energy development.
The turbine blade on display is form an early scale model of Orbital Marine Power’s O2 floating tidal turbine which was tested in the tide between Graemsay and Hoy, in Orkney, in 2008. It is seven times smaller than the rotor blade on the next prototype – the SR250 – which tested at EMEC in 2011. This was followed by a larger iteration – the SR2000 – which tested in 2016-18, which in turn was followed by the O2 which began operating at EMEC in 2021.
The rotor diameter has increased with each iteration of the technology – SR250 (8 m diameter) > SR2000 (16 m diameter) > O2 (20 m diameter). Through the EU-funded MaxBlade project, further innovations are being progressed to increase the blade diameter even further, to 26 m diameter. To get a feel for the scale of the blades, you can visit an SR2000 blade at EMEC, in the Charles Clouston Building car park in Stromness.
“We’ve partnered with scientists to bring in perspectives from marine research which gives us new insights into local natural history,” added Katy. “The renewables industry is helping us understand more about our environment as well.”
Powered by People runs until April 2026 and everyone is welcome to explore, reflect, and be inspired by the islands’ remarkable renewable energy journey.