UK: Wind farm targets green power in 2017

Vattenfall, the Swedish energy company, has confirmed today (23 July, 2015) plans to start generating low carbon electricity from a Northumbrian wind farm in early 2017.

As preparatory works on the 16-turbine Ray Wind Farm near Kirkwhelpington start later this month so does engagement with local residents on the best way to invest a 20-year community fund worth around £250,000 per year. The wind farm operator will start a five-month consultation in August to gather views on the best way to organise the fund and what local residents think the index linked payment should be invested in.

The 54.4MW Ray Wind Farm is expected to generate enough power every year to meet the equivalent annual electricity demand of over 30,000 UK households.

Vattenfall’s construction manager for Ray Wind Farm, Paul Nickless, said: “It’s good to get underway with the Ray Wind Farm construction project. Throughout the 18-month build we will ensure local residents are kept up to date with construction activity. This is an exciting engineering exercise and we hope people will take a lot of interest in what we are doing.”

Joanne Hutchinson, Vattenfall’s Senior Communications Adviser, said: “We want to start talking to people about the community fund in August. From 2017, Vattenfall will pay £250,000 per year into the fund. This is a large amount of money and to ensure it’s put to the best possible local use we need to start preparations for that now. So I would ask local people to get involved and register their interest in the fund and the construction of the wind farm via the freepost form or the Vattenfall website.”

Local residents can register their interest in staying in touch with the scheme and the community fund via the Vattenfall website www.vattenfall.co.uk/ray or by returning a freepost form included in a newsletter distributed to local households and businesses in the Kirkwhelpington area.

With the circa £90milion Ray Wind Farm scheduled to be fully operational by early 2017, Vattenfall will accredit the project in the Renewables Obligation support scheme.