Renewables group Ripple Energy has powered up its Kirk Hill wind farm and is now looking to deliver its largest cooperatively owned clean energy project.
The newly commissioned eight-turbine 18MW site in Ayrshire was developed by ESB. The project is co-owned by 5,600 members of the public and small businesses, which collectively raised £13.2m to build it in 2022.
Co-investment came from Greater Manchester based property management company Bruntwood.
Over its lifetime, Ripple expects nearly £3m of funds generated through the sale of green energy from the site will be awarded to local organisations, the Dailly Community Development Trust and the North Carrick Community Benefit Company.
The company is now looking for households and businesses to become a shareholders in the 60MW Whitelaw Brae wind farm in the Scottish Borders, Ripple’s fourth project. The application window due to close at the end of the month.
Ripple Energy chief projects officer Simon Peltenburg told Energy Voice: “I would love to put the challenge out there – I think this is the biggest cooperatively owned renewable energy project in the world. I’m going to put that challenge out there, anyone to prove me wrong.”
Whitelaw Brae
The 14-turbine site is being developed by BayWa near Tweedsmuir and has secured all consents and a grid connection.
With early works, such as creating the site entrance, complete, construction is due to begin in earnest in autumn, with commercial operations expected towards the end of 2026.Once finished, it will be able to generate power to cover the needs of 50,000 homes.
“What demonstrating is that the days where cooperative or community energy needs to be small turbines or small projects are over,” Peltenberg said. “We live in a digital age, we can connect people across the UK.
“If we are to reach net zero, we need to engage consumers. Net zero can’t be forced upon consumers, the best way to engage consumers in energy is to give them the ability to be generators.”
Cooperative ownership
Ripple Energy acts as a bridge between a distributed community of shareholders who collectively own a renewable energy project.
The shareholders receive a portion of the electricity, which is used to offset a proportion of their energy bills.
Ripple started with a single 2.5MW turbine pilot project in South Wales.
900 households and small businesses raised £2 million to buy into the Graig Fatha co-op share in 2020. Additional capital came from a private investor and a £1mn grant from the Welsh government.
The project started generating power in March 2022.
In addition, the company has the 40MW Derril Water solar farm in Devon under development. With its share offer made last year, RES is developing the project, which is set to enter construction next month before generating power towards the end of the year.
A total of 9,000 members bought into the project, raising £20m, “by far the single largest coop share raise in British history for anything,” Peltenburg said.
He added that Derril Water’s success is fuelling Ripple’s ambitions for Whitelaw Brae.
“We believe Whitelaw could well be the largest cooperatively owned energy project in the world – we know that is the case for UK, because just 18MW for Kirk Hill did it, so 60MW is absolutely massive.”
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