The Westmill Solar Cooperative, which manages the Westmill Solar Farm, a 5MW solar park covering 30 acres of land across Westmill Farm, will be launching a share issue in the coming weeks.
Westmill Solar Farm has been operating since July last year and is home to more than 20,000 solar modules which produce 4.4GWh of electricity per year.
The project is led by Adam Twine, an organic farmer and green entrepreneur, who has embraced environmentally-friendly farming techniques and actively engaged in renewable energy generation.
In 2004, Twine founded the Westmill Windfarm Cooperative, which saw five turbines installed in 2008 and is 100 percent cooperatively owned.
Twine hopes that local people from neighbouring communities will invest in the unique Westmill Solar Cooperative. The co-op is currently working with Energy4All to develop a share offer document. The share offer will be based on the pre-existing wind energy co-operative model. The project is thought to be the UK’s largest co-operatively-owned solar energy project.
It is expected that an offer of shares and bonds will be opened to the general public at the end of February 2012.