Severn Trent Water’s new wind turbine came onstream at Wanlip last week - the wind turbine is one of four located at the utility’s sewage treatment works, with two in Derby and one in Newthorpe, near Nottingham.

The Wanlip wind turbine is expected to produce around 5,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy annually for the sewage treatment works. Collectively, all four turbines are due generate around 20,000 megawatt hours of electricity annually.

Jon Beeson, renewable energy specialist at the water company explained:

“We’re a responsible company and we already generate almost a quarter of our energy from renewable sources, including crop-digestion, water and sewage gas power. The wind turbines now add to this and will hopefully see us generating a third of our energy from renewable sources by 2015. We’ve thought carefully about the resources that we have as a company. Before we installed any of the wind turbines, we carried out wind tests at 5,000 different sites – from that number; less than ten proved suitable to install large wind turbines.”

Severn Trent Water has worked closely with local communities to help residents to welcome wind turbines and discuss any concerns they may have. The wind turbine at Wanlip was named Windy by class one of Rothley Primary School, which was selected in a competition held in the school. The utility has also donated more than £100,000 to benefit local community organisations and schools in the four areas that the turbines have been constructed.

Work to research and plan the construction of the wind turbines started in 2007 and planning approval to construct the wind turbine at Wanlip was granted in 2011.

It is expected that all four will be producing power for the first time before the end of March.