Cornish community group buys renewable developer for £1.34m

Community Power Cornwall will own an additional five solar farms and three 11KW wind turbines

Cornwall’s first community-owned energy co-operative has bought a renewable developer for £1.34m.

The sale brings five solar arrays with a total capacity of 500KW and three 11KW wind turbines from West Country Renewables (WCR) Limited into the ownership of Community Power Cornwall.

It was funded by a loan of £1.43 million from The Low Carbon Society – which provides financial support for projects with positive social and environmental outcomes – and TLC Society has a loan facility with Cornwall Council which funded £1.27 million of the deal.

Part of the loans were used for arrangement fees and performance and warranty retentions.

Neil Farrington, Technical Director at Community Power Cornwall said: “We’re thrilled West Country Renewables is now community-owned. It shows the power of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to make their communities and local businesses stronger.

“Not only are we generating home-grown clean energy, we’re keeping it in Cornwall and we’re maximising the value of projects by employing local people.”

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