A group of Lewis crofters have clinched a £13million deal to build Britain’s biggest community windfarm.
The Co-operative Bank is to lend the cash to Point and Sandwick Trust, known locally as Point Power, to build three large turbines on communal crofters’ grazings on a heather-clad moorland hill just outside Stornoway.
When completed, the 9MW development at Beinn Ghrideag will be the country’s largest community-owned turbine scheme.
It is also one of the largest social enterprise finance schemes from the Co-operative Bank.
The loan would be drawn down after the community finalises formalities and a lease with the Stornoway Trust.
The turbines will measure 410ft from base to blade tip on crofting common grazings three miles from Stornoway.
It means the crofters’ first electricity should be generated on to the national grid later next year. It would supply 6,000 households and save 13,600tonnes of CO2 each year.
Some £40million of profits over the next 25 years will be ploughed back into vital social projects like job creation, rural regeneration and improving local amenities.
One body to benefit will be the Bethesda Cancer Hospice at Stornoway which has been promised an annual donation of £20,000.
Point Power chairman Donald John Macsween said: “This is wonderful news for the community.
“We are extremely grateful to the Co-operative Bank which now helps us place the orders for the turbines.
“We plan to start construction early next year and have the turbines working and connected by December 2012.”
Mr Macsween, a councillor for the Point district, said the profits would help local projects which were stalled due to a lack of cash in addition to job creation enterprises and improving community amenities.
Mr Macsween believes the project will show that community-owned windfarms can be developed on a commercial scale and give a far higher return to the whole community than giant schemes controlled by outside private firms.
A spokesman for the Co-operative Bank said: “Terms have been agreed between the Co-operative Bank and Point and Sandwick Power to finance a windfarm on Lewis.”
Though the Point and Sandwick district is miles away beyond the other side of the town, crofters have traditional grazings and peat cutting rights at the back of Stornoway to compensate for the shortage of pasture in their own area.
The community wind scheme will neighbour a giant 42-turbine windfarm being progressed by Lewis Windpower – a partnership between Amec and French-owned EDF Energy.