Farmers invited for £10m wind power development
Posted on: September 16th, 2008 by Lynnette Adamson
Dr Maitland Mackie, chairman of Mackies ice cream of Scotland, has invited all British farmers and landowners to develop their own wind power generation company.
According to him, rural communities are missing out on such a huge opportunity of generating their own wind energy. They are being left out of big profits that can be generated from installing wind turbines in their own areas.
He has called on all landowners and farmers to contribute minimum 1000 pounds in his newly launched company which is raising finance for installing new wind power plants.
The 10 million pound company has been tentatively named Rural Sector Wingen would first call on investors whose sites are identified to be suitable for wind power generation. The investor will become a constituent of the company and could look forward generating £15,000 in income. This will be from installing just one 3MW wind power turbine.
According to Dr Mackie, wind turbines are being installed on agricultural land anyway. So giving this opportunity to farmers and land owners is the most natural thing to do. He has already installed 3 wind powered turbines of 850kW capacity each, at Westertown in Aberdeenshire. These turbines are providing power for ice cream production and farming of Mackie’s of Scotland.
The wind farm uses Vestas’ V52 turbines costing £2.5 million. Half of its power is sold to Good Energy through the national grid. According to Mackies, on a windy day, the scheme generates £1,200 in electricity. Dr Mackie has already got together a team of financial, business and technical experts. Theoretically, if 90,000 farmers join the scheme with one 3MW turbine each, the company could generate 270GW of power.
