Bristol: Work to begin on England's biggest wind turbine

Work to build England’s biggest wind turbine will start in February.

The 150-metre structure will dwarf the other turbines already in Avonmouth, Bristol, when it is finished.

Around 100 tonnes of steel and 1,000 tonnes of concrete will be needed to build it.

Project development manager David Tudgey said the turbine would be a “real testament of hope for the future”.

It is hoped it will be up and running by spring, providing low-carbon electricity to 3,500 homes and saving 1,965 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The turbine is owned by community group Ambition Community Energy and planning permission was granted by North Somerset Council in 2020.

It is one of only a handful of onshore wind turbines to be approved since new planning laws came into effect in 2016 which made it much harder to build them.

The government vowed to relax these rules earlier in the month, after backbenchers threatened to rebel.

Charles Gamble, from Ambition Community Energy, said it was “quite a difficult site” because of the turbine’s size.

“Size does make a difference,” he said. “It generates a lot more electricity if it is bigger and higher.

“And the constraints around this area are very substantial,” he added.

The turbine will stand next to a gas-fired power plant and will produce clean and cost efficient electricity, as the price of other energy sources rises.

Wind energy expert Andrew Garrad said: “There has been a hugely dramatic reduction in cost in wind turbines in the last couple of decades and they are now the cheapest in cash terms as well as being clean and quick.

“So it’s a slam dunk. Why wouldn’t we be doing it?”

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