Octopus Energy Generation is partnering with turbine manufacturer EWT to repower up to 1,000 onshore UK wind turbines.
In total there are around 9,000 onshore wind turbines. across England, Scotland and Wales
Under Octopus and EWT’s plans, they will upgrade these wind turbines to more powerful and tech-enabled ones in the range 250kW – 1MW. Work begins this Autumn and they aim to be finished by 2030.
The two companies also plan to work together on similar projects in other European countries in the future. They are exploring a range of ways to increase power generation, from fitting larger turbine blades, to replacing whole wind turbines and large wind farms.
Octopus has already worked with EWT on two of Octopus’s ‘Fan Club’ turbines in Caerphilly, Wales and Market Weighton, Yorkshire. They are exploring whether some of the repowered wind turbines could be brought onto a Fan Club-style model.
Zoisa North-Bond, chief executive of Octopus Energy Generation, comments: “We need to build enormous amounts of new renewable power, but at the same time it’s a no-brainer to make better use of the UK’s existing onshore wind turbines. There’s a huge untapped opportunity to repower wind turbines that communities have already hosted for many years.”
EWT chief executive Carel Kok said: “By working with Octopus to rapidly repower lots of older turbines in the UK, we’ll help bring online much more renewable capacity. Our powerful and tech-enabled turbines are the perfect ‘goldilocks’ solution for communities. We’re looking forward to installing many more in the years to come to turn this vision into reality.”
Octopus Energy Generation manages 3GW of renewable energy assets across Europe. It is planning to create 18 GW of green energy generation projects across the world by 2027.