Wind energy developer West Coast Energy is offering landowners a guaranteed income stream or discounted energy in return for the rights to erect a small to medium-sized wind energy installation on their land.
The proposition is based upon the developer taking on all of the financial, technical and planning risk associated with a project. West Coast Energy is seeking to engage landowners with space to accommodate individual wind turbines with a rated capacity of 100kW to 1.5MW. Such a development could produce up to 3500MWh of renewable electricity, which could be used on site as well as exported to the local grid supply network.
At next month's Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh, West Coast Energy will be out to show that its extensive in-house expertise and experience in key areas such as grid connection, wind measurement, planning and turbine procurement will ensure smooth progress through the development process. This offers the landowner chance to be completely ‘hands-off’ during a project including the operational and decommissioning stages, but still benefit from two decades of reduced energy costs or a diversified income.
“We are hoping that our proposition will make good environmental and business sense to landowners," said West Coast Energy's development manager, Richard Fearnall. "The recently launched Feed-in Tariff scheme will have caught the attention of those with the potential to consider a medium-sized wind development, but there are still many technical and financial barriers to overcome. We hope that our proposal will not just be of interest to farmers and landowners, but to businesses and community groups as well."
He said: “West Coast Energy can provide those looking for a development partner with the funds, experience and expertise to capitalise on this opportunity. Our partners will share the commercial benefit of schemes through improved energy costs or a stable income stream.”
