Clean energy utility Ecotricity has secured £70 million from institutional investor Aviva to refinance its renewable energy portfolio.
The package will refinance 60MW of operational wind and solar capacity comprising 19 separate sites, and Ecotricity founder Dale Vince said the agreement would help the firm accelerate the development of its renewable energy pipeline.
Ecotricity is targeting a total generation capacity of 100MW by the second half of 2016 and said it already had planning consent for six solar and wind farm sites with a capacity of 20MW.
“Harnessing our customers’ bills and turning them into windmills got Ecotricity to where it is today – that ‘bills into mills’ model has worked well for us over the last 20 years.
“This investment from Aviva is an evolution of that Ecotricity model – freeing up value from our own windmills – in effect where turning ‘mills into mills’,” Vince said.
Earlier this year Vince publicly backed Labour ahead of May’s general election, claiming that the coalition government had “systematically undermined” the UK’s renewable energy industry.