Wind: Fujifilm & PM Solutions
One company that is already ahead with its plans to follow the wind turbine route is Midlothian-based business print and mailing company PM Solutions.
Ron Davidson, who founded the company in 1998, has been pursuing the technology in recent years and aims to have the installation of two 30m, 50mW turbines complete by the end of 2012, at a cost of around £380,000.
For all his good intentions though, Davidson has had several hurdles to overcome. Firstly, following issues with his original supplier, the company is in talks with a new supplier for the turbines. Then the government threatened changes to the legislation on feed-in tariffs that would have detrimentally affected how long the investment would take to pay for itself.
“When up and running, we will be able to sell surplus electricity back to the grid but, if the government had got its way, it would have taken us eight years to pay the technology off compared to the three we were looking at previously,” he says.
However, Davidson is a determined man and has not been put off in his plans to install the technology.
“I plan for these turbines to help fund our expansion into a new building. We’ve grown from four to 18 staff in the past five years and also aim to be carbon zero by the end of 2012,” he says.
One manufacturer that has invested in wind turbine technology is Fujifilm, which, in November, completed the power generation project at its Tilburg plate facility in the Netherlands as part of an overall £85m capital expenditure plan at the plant.
Five Vestas V90 turbines, developed in partnership with ENECO, are online, providing as much as 2mW each and contributing around one-fifth of energy used at the 63-hectare site.
Fujifilm Europe has pledged to become carbon neutral and the turbines will help remove some 12,000 tonnes of CO2 from its annual emissions.
The wind project sits alongside other initiatives including a water recycling facility, which helps reduce waste. The company estimates that it reuses around 13% of the waste it produces, recycles 68% and regenerates 18%, leaving less than 1% to be disposed of.
