Worked example: Researching Renewable Energy for Wales

What this is

A secure Year 9 research plan, annotated against the success criteria. Answer key for Step 1: tidal is the only resource that is impossible, because the village is 30 km from the sea. Step 4: results 1 and 3 are the strongest (Use). Results 4 and 7 are useful with care. Results 2, 5, 6 and 8 should be rejected. The scores here were judged in 2026. Allow a point either way per question if the pupil's reason is sound, and check that each decision follows from the pupil's own scores.

Step 1 — science check

Resource	Energy store	Predictable?	Possible in Bryn Ysgawen?
Wind	Kinetic (moving air)	No	Yes. The ridge catches the prevailing south-westerly wind. But a turbine there would be seen from a popular walking path.
Hydroelectric	Gravitational potential (water high up)	Partly	Yes. Nant Ysgawen drops 60 m in 1 km, which is a big head of water. Output falls in dry summers.
Solar	Energy arrives by light from the Sun	Partly	Yes. The school and village hall have large south-facing roofs.
Tidal	Kinetic (moving sea water)	Yes, years ahead	No. The village is 30 km from the sea.
Biomass	Chemical (in wood)	Yes, if fuel is stored	Possibly. The brief does not mention woodland, so we would have to find out. It gives heat, which could replace the oil.

Every energy store is correct, and every “possible?” answer quotes a fact from the brief. Tidal is ruled out on evidence rather than opinion, and the biomass answer admits what we don't yet know. Evidences criterion 1.

Step 2 — the focused question

Main question: Which renewable source, hydro from Nant Ysgawen, wind on the ridge or solar on the school and hall roofs, would give Bryn Ysgawen the most reliable electricity for the lowest cost with the least harm to the landscape?

Science: How does the output of hydro, wind and solar each change through the year, and which is steadiest in winter, when the village uses most energy?
Village: How much water flows in a stream like Nant Ysgawen in a dry summer, and how windy is an exposed ridge in mid Wales?
People, cost and environment: What have similar community schemes in Wales cost, what did they do with the income, and what did walkers and wildlife groups say about them?

The main question names the place, the three real options and the three things that decide between them. Each smaller question could be answered by research, and together they cover the science, the site and the people. Evidences criterion 2.

Step 3 — the searches

Question	Exactly what I would type	What it leaves out
1	hydro wind solar output by month "capacity factor" site:ac.uk	Only university pages, so no adverts or sellers. The quotation marks find the exact technical term.
2	"run of river" hydro Wales "dry summer" -sale	“-sale” cuts out companies trying to sell turbines. The quotation marks keep “dry summer” together, so I get pages about low-flow problems.
3	"community energy" Wales report filetype:pdf	Only full PDF reports, not short news stories or opinion posts.

Each search is short keywords, not a sentence, and each uses a technique for a stated reason: to remove sellers, to keep a phrase together or to find full reports. Evidences criterion 3.

Step 4 — judging the results (as at 2026)

Result	Who	When	Why	Evid.	Total	Decision and reason
1	2	2	2	2	8	Use. The Welsh Government's own statistics, updated in August 2026, with figures.
2	1	0	0	0	1	Reject. A sponsored advert from a company selling wind turbines. “GUARANTEED” with no figures.
3	2	1	2	2	7	Use. The public body for Wales's environment. No date is shown, but its newest figure is from 2021, so I check the date on the page.
4	0	0	2	1	3	Use with care. Anyone can edit it and its newest figure is from 2019. I would use its references to find the original sources, but not quote it.
5	0	0	0	0	0	Reject. Anonymous, from 2014, and only someone's uncle's opinion.
6	1	0	1	0	2	Reject. From 2012, about a subsidy scheme that closed to new applicants in 2019, so the advice is out of date.
7	1	2	1	2	6	Use with care. Real monthly figures from a village-sized hydro scheme, dry summer included. But it is one scheme, and the group is proud of it.
8	0	0	0	0	0	Reject. Made for views, not facts, and no date.

(a) More trustworthy. The page says openly that there was an error, what it affected and how much the figure changed (54% to 55%). An organisation that checks its data and publishes corrections is doing what it should. It does mean I must use the latest version and write down the date I looked.

(b) They are for different years, 2019 and 2024, and Wales could have added a lot of wind and solar in five years. They may also be calculated in different ways or from different data, so I would not put them side by side without reading how each was worked out. I would quote a figure with its year and its source, for example: “Renewable generation was equivalent to 55% of the electricity Wales used in 2024 (Welsh Government, 2026).”

Every decision follows from the scores, and every score has a reason. The pupil treats a published correction as a sign of quality rather than a weakness, and will not compare two figures without checking their years and methods. Evidences criterion 4.

Step 5 — the research plan

Question	Start with	What exactly I need	How I will record it
1	The fact card, then my Step 3 search	Which of hydro, wind and solar produces most in winter, and roughly how much less solar makes in December than in June.	Notes in my own words, with a reference for every figure.
2	Result 7	The lowest monthly output of their 50 kW turbine and which month it was, so I can see how bad a dry summer gets.	A small table of month and output, copied exactly, with the source under it.
3	Result 3, then result 7	Result 3's three trilemma issues (security, equity, sustainability) as a checklist for comparing options. Result 7's spending of its income as a real example.	A three-column comparison table, one column per energy source.

Each question is linked to a source that scored well, and says exactly what to look for, so the research has a clear end point. Evidences criterion 5.

Step 6 — the reference

Welsh Government (2026) Energy generation and use in Wales: first combined report. Available at: https://www.gov.wales/energy-generation-and-use-wales-first-combined-report (Accessed: 14 October 2026)

Organisation, year, title, full web address and access date are all present, so anyone could find the same page. The access date matters because this page has already been corrected once. Evidences criterion 5.

Why this response is secure

It starts from the science and the village facts, so it rules out tidal before wasting any search time on it.
The main question is specific enough to answer, and the three smaller questions divide the work sensibly.
Each search uses a technique for a reason the pupil can explain.
It scores every result the same way and does not simply trust the ones that look official. The unofficial community blog is kept because it has real data.
It spots the trap of comparing figures from different years and methods, and shows how to quote a figure honestly.
The plan says what to find and how to record it, which is what turns searching into research.