Photos: BT blows £250m on wind farms
To shrink its carbon footprint...
BT is planning to develop wind farms to generate up to 25 per cent of its existing UK electricity needs by 2016.
The project will cost up to £250m and will use third party funding and renewable energy partners to help the telecoms giant reduce its carbon emissions.
The wind farms could generate a total of 250MW of electricity, which would prevent the release of 500,000 tonnes of CO2 each year compared with coal generation.
BT is aiming to have 50 wind turbines up and running by 2012, which would generate around 100MW of power.
Pictured is a wind farm in Cambridgeshire, which is representative of the type of development BT is planning.
Photo credit: Visual Media
BT is currently searching for high wind-yield sites near or on land it already owns for the wind farm development.
BT has already applied for planning permission for test masts at the Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall, Wideford Hill Radio in Orkney and Scousburgh Radio Station in Shetland.
BT is one of the UK's biggest electricity consumers, with an annual requirement of around 0.7 per cent of the nation's entire consumption.
Goonhilly was the largest satellite Earth station in the world with 61 dishes but BT announced plans to move its satellite comms business away from the site in Cornwall last year. The first antenna constructed at the site - known as Arthur - is pictured above.
Photo credit: Steve Ranger