Renewable energy

A renewable energy project could:

• Reduce your agricultural business' energy bills (e.g. heating, lighting, machinery)
• Allow you to fix energy costs over medium to long term.
• Create a potentially significant new source of revenue.
• Provide an excellent return on your investment over the long term.
• Reduce your carbon footprint and promote your environmental credentials.

Our accredited team of renewable and agricultural specialists will give you the knowledge, support and funding you need to make your renewable energy project a success. We offer:

• Guidance – our team can provide general support on key issues such as type of renewable energy, sizing, equipment costs and revenue.
• Local presence – our local presence throughout the UK means we can meet you face-to-face and assess your potential on an individual basis.
• Access to expertise – when necessary, we can put you in touch with relevant experts, including technical energy consultants, planning consultants, engineers and installers.
• Ongoing support – once your renewable project is up and running, we will provide ongoing support to ensure you’re getting the most out of it.

Our tailored credit policy meets the specific needs of renewable energy investors and offers the following benefits:

• Borrow up to 100% of the renewable energy project’s total investment value.
• Funding can be secured against alternative assets (agricultural land).
• Typical repayment term: 8 years (with 10-year terms available for some projects).

Note: the maximum project size is 1500kW for wind power and 50kW for solar.

The Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) actually consists of two tariffs: Generation and Export. The Generation tariff pays you for every unit of energy you generate. You can then use this energy yourself or sell it back to the grid. You'll receive an additional Export tariff for any surplus energy you sell. FiT calculations are important when assessing your project – our team will be able to help you with this.

Notes:

1. "Retrofit" means installed on a building which is already occupied.
2. "New" means where installed on a new building before first occupation.
3. "Stand-alone" means not attached to a building and not wired to provide electricity to an occupied building.
4. [*] Tariff set to change: August 2011.

(source: The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), 2011)