Sainsbury’s has signed a deal with small Scottish company – A7 Lochhead, to take the electricity from a 3 wind turbine energy project near Glasgow which has already been granted planning consent.
Sainsbury’s, advised by Utilix says that the wind energy project would provide for the equivalent of 1 percent of the retailer’s electricity requirements. Big users of electricity are currently desperate to get their hands on green electricity. Customers and shareholders are crying out for the stuff but there is just not enough of it to go around. So what better way of securing it than doing a deal directly with a wind energy generator.
What is rather misleading however is Sainsbury’s claiming that “this is where the electricity is being produced specifically for our use”. This rather suggests that the wind farm has been developed and built specifically for Sainsbury’s when in fact it would not have made any difference to the likelihood of the wind farm going ahead if Sainsbury’s had not struck the deal – as it would have been bought by RWE npower direct or another of the big 6 utilities. Also because the electricity goes into the local grid network it will supply local homes in the area around Lochhead – not the Sainsbury’s stores across the UK.
Despite the rather confusing PR messages there can be no doubt that demand for green renewable electricity is positive and the more demand the better. I hope that Sainsbury’s look seriously at on-site renewable energy generation as-well as the off-site contracts.
