Scottish Water has installed ten small-scale wind turbines at one of its wastewater treatment facilities in a bid to reduce its energy costs.

The water firm says this is the first time it has used turbines like this in Scotland. The turbines at Stornoway (pictured) are capable of generating 500KW of electricity per day – equivalent to 25% of the energy needed by the facility.

Eddie Johnstone, Project Manager with Scottish Water’s Energy Team said: “Scottish Water needs a significant amount of energy to provide services to the people of Scotland. We want to produce more of our own power to reduce our energy bill. We want to do this for the benefit of our customers while helping to meet Scotland’s renewable energy targets.

“Small-scale wind development at our treatment works such as Stornoway is one of the ways we can achieve this. The energy generated here will help to power the treatment works, meaning we need to purchase less energy as a result.”

Scottish Water teamed up with Evance, which helped install the turbines. The water company currently generates around 7% of the energy it consumes.