South West Water has been granted planning permission for a single wind turbine at Crowdy water treatment site, North Cornwall.
Once operational, the turbine will be capable of generating almost half of the site's power needs.
South West Water's Renewable Energy Manager, David Harpur, said:
"This project is part of South West Water's efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and help combat climate change.
"We have reviewed all of our sites to see which would be most suitable for small-scale wind turbines. Crowdy was chosen because it gets plenty of wind, uses a lot of electricity and has plenty of space to site a turbine. We have also been able to satisfy the council and their many consultees that their strict environmental criteria will be met.
"South West Water already operates hydro-electric and biogas plants and planning permission for this new wind turbine will help in our goal to further develop the company's renewable energy capability."
The wind turbine will cost in the region of £350,000, funded by South West Water. The financial return generated from the feed-in tariff for the electricity it produces and savings from the reduction in electricity purchased from the national grid will mean the turbine will 'pay back' in as little as five years. The turbine will have a lifetime of over 20 years.
South West Water has selected the single 100kW wind turbine on the basis that all the electricity generated will be used locally on site. The company said this would complement its core business activity of water treatment rather than being a commercial scale wind turbine used for energy export.
The turbine will have a 30m hub height, with a rotor diameter of up to 21 metres and a rated capacity of around 100kW.
Crowdy water treatment works uses around 700 Megawatt (MWh) of electricity a year. A 100kw turbine would generate around 300MWh - approximately 43% of the site's power needs
South West Water currently uses approximately 250 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity each year and generates approximately 15GWh of renewable electricity each year. The firm is working towards generating 30GWh per year by the end of 2015 and 50GWh by the end of 2020.
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