The Co-operative Group began work this week on a 14 MW wind farm in Cambridgeshire.
Seven turbines are being installed at White Mill in Coldham in an £18.5 million project that brings together expertise from across the group’s businesses and heralds the start of a jv with The Ventus Funds managed by Climate Change Capital Ltd.
The Co-operative Bank is the lender for the project and all the energy generated by White Mill be procured by the group through an exclusive power-purchase agreement, securing a long term green energy source for the business. The Co-operative is well on the way to achieving a key element of its ethical plan to generate 25 per cent of its electricity needs from its own renewable energy projects by 2017.
The seven new turbines at White Mill, supplied by REpower, will offset 26,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and, combined with an existing wind farm on adjacent land Co-op land, will generate more than 70 GW hours of electricity a year - enough to supply some 16,500 homes.
Installation will begin at White Mill next spring.
Rob Ellis, sustainable development manager at The Co-operative Group, said: “We are very pleased to have reached this point where we can now begin work at White Mill. By bringing together expertise from across our Co-operative businesses, along with the creation of a new joint venture with The Ventus Funds, we are delighted to be further increasing the amount of renewable energy we are generating from our very own wind farm and contributing to the target set out in our ethical plan.”
