FASHION retailer Mackays Group, which trades as M&Co, is to invest more than £20million in a new wind-turbine network to generate all the power used in its stores in nearly 300 towns nationwide.
The Renfrew-based firm has set up a subsidiary, MEG Renewables, to achieve its goal of creating a 20-megawatt network.
It will develop and build the turbine sites that will be focused on Scotland initially.
Mackays, like other retailers, buys in renewable power on contract from third parties but it is thought to be the first to create its own infrastructure. Surplus power will be sold to the National Grid.
MEG Renewables is targeting sites where one to three turbines, with a combined capacity of between 500 kilowatts and 5MW, can be built. The focus on smaller sites is in keeping with its strategy to maintain a broad portfolio of energy assets.
It already has four turbine sites in the planning process and which, if approved, would generate 3.5-4MW.
MEG Renewables business-development manager Ken Hunter said the firm would manage the turbines in which it invested for their life span. He added: “As an independent and privately funded developer, MEG Renewables provides the risk capital to progress projects through each of the development stages, with no requirement for any expenditure by the landowner.”
The firm is interested in new development opportunities plus sites on which turbines have been planned in the past, but where applications have ceased to progress.
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