We’re excited to reach another huge milestone for our members. We’ve now closed the share offer for Kirk Hill Wind Farm, our second and biggest project to date. Kirk Hill will be 18.8MW. That’s 7x bigger, with 6x as many owners as Graig Fatha, our first project.
Once built, Kirk Hill will take less than 10 minutes to produce enough green electricity to power a typical home for a whole year – saving over 12 million KgCO2 every year.
If you’re wondering how the ownership and funding breaks down – here’s an overview.
Kirk Hill is owned by the co-operative and co-investor Bruntwood
- As with most wind farms, Kirk Hill is owned by an “SPV” (special purpose vehicle). The ownership is split between the co-operative (5,603 individuals and 18 businesses) and co-investor Bruntwood, a commercial property company
The co-operative will own 57.6% of the wind farm. Bruntwood will own 42.4% of the wind farm
- The split of ownership reflects the amount of equity each party will contribute to the wind farm
- The total equity raised from the co-operative and Bruntwood is £22.9M
- The co-operative will provide £13.2m and Bruntwood will provide £9.7m
A bank finance facility will fund £9.6m for the remaining balance of construction costs
- The total cost of buying and building the wind farm is £32.5m. The equity from the co-operative and Bruntwood (£22.9m) is 70% of the £32.5m required
- The remaining £9.6m (30%) of the construction cost will be funded through a bank finance facility
- The total construction cost will therefore be split 41% from the co-operative, 30% from Bruntwood and 30% from the finance facility
- Together, the co-operative and Bruntwood still own the whole wind farm. The bank doesn’t own a share of the wind farm. Their 30% will have a separate contract (long term power purchase agreement, or “PPA”) for its share of the wind farm’s generation. The great news is, once the finance facility is repaid, the revenue from the sales of that 30% excess power will be received as additional returns to the co-op and Bruntwood.
- This arrangement provides certainty over revenue to the bank and will not affect members’ returns.
On with the build!
Closing the project has enabled us to get on with the exciting job of constructing Kirk Hill. We have already begun the pre-construction phase. The plan is to begin the track and access work in the summer before completing the turbine foundations by the end of the year. Members can monitor this timeline every step of the way on their member dashboard.
