(Bloomberg) — The U.K. Green Investment Bank and
Strathclyde Pension Fund are channeling 60 million pounds ($92
million) into small, community-based clean-energy facilities.
The funds, with 50 million pounds from the GIB, are being
invested through Albion Community Power Plc, which builds and
operates community-scale projects, the Edinburgh-based bank said
in an e-mailed statement. Albion plans to attract 40 million
pounds more from investors.
The money will back about 30 projects, with the first being
a 2-megawatt run-of-river hydropower facility costing about 8.5
million pounds. Capacity exists for another 800 megawatts of new
hydropower across the U.K., according to the statement. That
would require more than 3 billion pounds of investment in remote
rural communities.
“The U.K. is in the process of transforming how it
generates its power,” Lord Smith of Kelvin, chair of the GIB,
said. “In future we will see less reliance on a small number of
large power stations and more focus on a network of smaller,
locally generated, renewable sources of power.”
A range of projects including onshore wind and biogas
facilities will also be eligible to receive funding of 1 million
to 10 million pounds.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Louise Downing in London at
ldowning4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
Tony Barrett, Randall Hackley