News

September 23, 2008

How Do You Get Exposure To Coal And Renewables At The Same Time? For The Answer Look To UK Coal

By Chris Cann

Coal, green energy, and property make for unusual bedfellows at first glance but, if you care to take a closer look, the synergies become clearer. This is the thinking of Britain’s largest coal producer, UK Coal, which is also a significant UK land holder and the main driving force behind a vast suite of early-stage wind farm projects. “We are an energy company and we are a major land owner – there you’ve got two of the main ingredients for the development of wind farms,” says UK Coal spokesman Stuart Oliver.

“The emphasis in Britain in the past 10 years has been on developing renewable energy”, he continues, “so we have 20 per cent of our power from renewables by 2020. Whether we achieve that target is another matter, but that’s the way the way the wind is blowing, and if that’s the way the wind is blowing then let’s have some turbines on our land.”

UK Coal has a net of wind energy projects sweeping across its 115,000 hectares of UK property, two of which have been approved – the Bewick Drift...