10 December 2002 00:00
Powergen Renewables welcomes go-ahead for Cornwall’s most powerful wind farm

The decision by North Cornwall District Council to give the go-ahead to Powergen Renewables’ plans to re-power its St Breock wind farm has been welcomed by the company.

The plans call for the old turbines – 11 x 450KW – to be replaced by eight state-of-the-art 1.3MW machines at the site near Wadebridge, almost tripling the electricity output from the site.

Alex Tancock, Powergen Renewables’ site developer, said: “It’s good to see that the council has recognised that it’s not just new wind farms that are important, re-powered existing sites have their part to play as well.

“A clean, green method of electricity generation such as this wind farm will make a significant contribution to reducing Cornwall’s emissions of the greenhouse gases associated with climate change.

The wind farm should generate enough electricity to meet the annual power needs of around 7,200 homes, roughly equivalent to the annual energy use of homes in nearby Wadebridge and Bodmin.

A recent MORI poll suggested that tourism in the area would not be affected by wind farm developments such as St Breock. The independent pollsters conducted a survey of tourist attitudes to wind farms in Scotland and found that 91% of tourists said that the presence of turbines in the area made no difference to whether or not they would return.

The re-power will also help meet the Government’s call for 10% of the UK’s electricity to come from renewable generation by 2010. The Government Office for the South West has set its own target of 11-15% electricity to be generated from renewable sources in the region by 2010.

In addition, the Policy and Innovation Unit Energy Review recently recommended that the target for renewable energy generation should be 20% by 2020.

Ends

Notes to editors:
Powergen Renewables currently has a portfolio of 17 wind farms in the UK and Ireland.

Those wind farms have prevented the emission of around 450,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

For more information contact:
Jonathan Smith on 024 7642 5741