Opening bell for UK’s largest crowd-funded wind project

Last year, the company raised £1.25m on Trillion Fund for a separate project, closing the campaign six weeks early thanks to a flood of investors. If equally successful, the latest project E5 Energy, will become the largest crowdfunded wind installation in the UK.

Earthmill managing director Steve Milner said: “We were obviously pleased with the take up of the initial fundraising and decided that, in the current climate of expensive bank lending, crowd funding in green tech and renewables made sense again.

“There is an appetite among investors for debt returns underpinned by these existing and highly productive assets, and this will help us drive further growth and fund 10 new turbine installations across the UK.”

Clean revenue

The turbines themselves generate revenue from fixed Feed-in Tariffs and the sale of electricity to the National Grid.

Together, the 10 50kW turbines generate enough energy annually to power over 500 homes – 1,673,446 kWh – although the energy generated by these turbines will be used to power farms and local businesses.

An investor lending £10,000 before February 28 would receive twice-yearly interest payments of £375, totalling £750 a year and generating total interest of £2250 after three years.

Strength-to-strength

Peer-to-peer financing is becoming increasingly popular among cleantech SMEs with its comparatively low interest rates.

In November, ethical investment platform Abundance gave individuals the opportunity to invest in what would be Europe’s largest crowd-funded solar project to date.

VIDEO: How investing in wind energy works:

Brad Allen