Member Article

Anesco brings solar power to Exbury Egg

National energy efficiency solutions company, Anesco, is backing a unique project that will see an artist using a solar-powered egg on a Hampshire river as his studio for a year.

The Exbury Egg, which will be in place on the River Beaulieu at the end of May, is an energy efficient and self-sustaining work space. The project has been 3 years in development and is the result of collaboration between key partners from renewable energy, architecture, art, engineering and design.

Anesco has donated solar panels that will provide renewable energy to the egg for the duration of the project. CEO Adrian Pike commented: “We are delighted to back the Exbury Egg project, which promises to provide a unique insight into the changing river environment.

“As an energy efficiency company we are dedicated to helping organisations and individuals to reduce their carbon emissions and to support the local communities in which we operate.”

Artist Stephen Turner, who specialises in long term artistic explorations of environmental settings, will use the egg as a ‘residency’ floating in the Beaulieu Estuary for a year, to examine the changing patterns of its marine ecology, while making artworks inspired by his surroundings.

Stephen Turner explains: “Climate change is already creating new shorelines and habitats. Established salt marsh is being eroded by a combination of rising sea levels and falling landmass and the entire littoral environment is in a state of flux. The implications for wildlife and for the flora as well as for people are challenging. Raising awareness of the past and the unfolding present of a very special location will be the task, whist living in an ethical relationship with nature and treading as lightly as possible upon the land.”

The project will include an extensive education programme, covering primary age students through to university. Schools will be able to engage with the Egg project throughout its programme, including the construction period, on science, art, ecology and engineering topics. Opportunities for community participation with people of all ages are also being offered through a series of events and workshops throughout the year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Adrian Pike .