A lot of hot air around turbines

A lot of hot air around turbines

Green-minded investors are being invited to play their part in combating climate change, while at the same time hopefully earning a decent return, by putting their money into wind farms.

This Monday will see the launch of a major public share issue aimed at raising £5m to invest in a series of wind power and other renewable energy projects across the country.

Ethical bank Triodos Bank says those who sign up will share in the ownership of "in­spiring projects which harness the power of natural resources to provide clean energy for tens of thousands of people".

But if there's one environmental issue that really gets people hot under the collar, it's wind farms. To some people, those huge turbines standing hundreds of feet high, are magnificent feats of engineering, but to others they are an almighty blot on the landscape and represent the industrialisation of Britain's countryside.

They have pitted politicians, environmental groups and celebrities against each other. The Tory leader, Michael Howard, hates them, while the Lib Dems have been campaigning in support.

Meanwhile, Noel Edmonds - a big noise in the "against" camp - has locked horns with his former Saturday morning kids' TV rival, Chris Tarrant, one of the celebrity "faces" of the British Wind Energy Association.

The issue hit the news again this week with the start of a seven-week public inquiry into plans for 27 turbines which would be sited on a blustery.....continued below

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ridge north of Kendal, just outside the boundary of the Lake District national park.

If you're with Chris Tarrant on this one, and subscribe to his view that the turbines are "modern-day guardian angels", you may find Triodos's share offer appealing.

The Bristol-based bank will next week be offering people the chance to become shareholders in Triodos Renewables, a public limited company which came into being 10 years ago and was originally called the Wind Fund. This is its third share issue - the last was in 1998.

It plans to invest in a variety of "sensibly and sensitively-sited projects" across the country - principally, wind turbines (some located on brownfield sites) and small-scale hydro-electric schemes. It also has plans to take a small stake in a large offshore wind farm in the North Sea.

A small proportion of the money raised will be invested in "development stage" projects which it concedes only have a limited chance of being built and are therefore classified as higher risk. It says that in future there may be opportunities to invest in schemes for generating energy from organic waste and technologies such as solar and tidal energy.

The Triodos group has a strong track record in this area, having financed more than 150 European renewable energy projects including the Haverigg II wind farm in Cumbria, the Beochlich hydro-electric project in Argyll, Scotland, and the two Ecotricity turbines that tower over Ford's Dagen­ham plant in east London. The company claims shareholders could earn a "very competitive" return, with projections of annual dividends rising to 12% within five years and in excess of 15% by 2011-2012. The minimum investment is £980.