Windpower gets £15m boost (From Stroud News and Journal)

Windpower gets £15m boost

WINDFARM pioneer Ecotricity is set to more than double the amount of cash invested in new turbines to £15 million this year as it celebrates a decade in business.

The Stroud-based company, the largest green energy suppliers in Europe, is due to embark on an unprecedented turbine-building programme across the UK.

Ecotricity boss and founder Dale Vince OBE celebrated the company's achievements with a lavish bash at trendy Stroud bar Nine on Wednesday, May 25.

"It is time we built serious amounts of wind energy in an effort to really tackle climate change," he told the SNJ.

"The way we make electricity is the biggest single cause of climate change in the UK.

"Now we have bigger and better machines and we are starting to build more and more of them."

Although no new projects are planned in the Stroud valleys for the moment, the windfarm mogul vowed the company would continue its fight to build more turbines in the area.

These include controversial plans to build a wind park next to the existing turbine in Nympsfield which was thrown out by district planners in 2004 after local opposition.

"This fight in Stroud is almost one of principle," he said. "It is crazy - we are building them everywhere else.

"We are hoping to build some more around here and come back and try again in Nailsworth before long."

And he did not rule out the possibility that the company might branch out into other forms of green energy like wave power.

"I believe in wave power," he said. "Not yet but maybe 10 years from now we will be building a combined wave power and wind machine.

"We have created an awful lot of change in the last 10 years and there is an awful lot to come."