North Uist Development Company (NUDC) has kicked off construction of the UistWind community wind farm on the Scottish island after a successful fundraising campaign.
Construction of the 1.8MW feed-in tariff project due online by October is being tackled by Western Isles civil engineers MacInnes Bros.
Outer Hebrides developer NUDC raised a total of £452,850, in excess of £100,000 more than the community needed for its equity stake in the project consisting of two 900kW turbines at Criongrabhal near Clachan-na-Luib.
Commercial loans are covering most of the cost of the £3.5m UistWind scheme but the community still needed to raise a minimum of £350,000 as its equity stake.
UistWind is financed mainly by Triodos Bank UK with a secondary loan from the Energy Investment Fund (EIF), a Scottish government fund managed by the Scottish Investment Bank.
“I am delighted the Scottish government has played a part in making this important community project happen by providing £575,095 of EIF funding towards the capital cost of the project,” said Scottish Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse.
“The community has also benefitted from important support through our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme,” he added.
The wind farm will be owned by the community and aims to generate more than £105,000 a year, or £2.33m over the project’s projected lifespan of 22 years, with the profits going straight back to the community via NUDC’s charitable activities.