Westmill Wind Farm Cooperative
Encyclopedia
Industrial and Provident Society
An industrial and provident society is a legal entity for a trading business or voluntary organisation in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and New Zealand...
that owns 100% of the Westmill Wind Farm which is an onshore wind farm
Wind farm
A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electric power. A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other...
near the village of Watchfield
Watchfield
Watchfield is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse, about southeast of Highworth in neighbouring Wiltshire. Watchfield is about north of the village of Shrivenham. Both villages used to be on the main road between Oxford and Swindon, which is now the A420 road...
in the Vale of White Horse
Vale of White Horse
The Vale of White Horse is a local government district of Oxfordshire in England. The main town is Abingdon, other places include Faringdon and Wantage. There are 68 parishes within the district...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It has five 1.3 MW wind turbine
Wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...
s erected in a line along the disused runway of the former RAF Watchfield. The wind farm has a power output of up to 6.5 MW, projected to produce as much electricity in a year as used by more than 2,500 homes. The turbines were erected in 8 days and the first fully month of generation was March 2008. It has an open day usually in June each year.
The wind energy cooperative was established in 2004 and has more than 2,000 members. The wind farm is intended to help to reduce dependence on fossil fuel
Fossil fuel
Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
s whose emissions are considered to contribute to climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
. In 2007 Westmill Wind Farm Co-operative received a Schumacher Award.
Westmill Wind Farm was originally developed by Adam Twine who was in the later stages assisted by Energy4All , a company founded to enable community owned renewable energy projects by Baywind Energy Co-operative
Baywind Energy Co-operative
Baywind Energy Co-operative was the first co-operative to own wind turbines in the United Kingdom.Baywind was modelled on the similar wind turbine cooperatives and other renewable energy co-operatives that are common in Scandinavia, and was founded as an Industrial and Provident Society in 1996. It...
, which is a pioneer of co-operative wind energy in the UK. Westmill Wind Farm Co-operative Ltd, as with a growing number of such coops, now owns part of Energy4All. You can register interest in becoming a member of future coops on the Energy4All website.
Westmill Sustainable Trust (WeSET) is a charity formed in 2010 that receives 0.5% of the wind farm's revenue each year. Its objective is to encourage and promote the deployment of sustainable energy, in particular (but not exclusively) within a 25 mile radius from Westmill Wind Farm. Its website has educational material and details of how to visit Westmill Wind Farm.