More than one third of UK farmers want to install renewable energy projects on their farmland, most of them within the next year, and hope to generate average returns of 25,000 pounds ($40,565) per year, UK bank Barclays said.
The bank's business arm on Tuesday launched a 100-million pound fund to help farmers finance renewable energy projects, including solar panels, wind farms, hydro plants and organic waste power as a growing number of agricultural businesses seek to benefit from government support tariffs.
"We want to signal very clearly to the market that we consider this to be a big future industry, a big opportunity for agricultural businesses and also a big opportunity for the renewables," said Barclays Business' Product and Marketing Director, Travers Clarke-Walker, whose team will be managing the fund.
"This is a quickly emerging industry." A Barclays survey of 300 agricultural customers also showed four out of five farmers recognise renewable energy can save costs and 60 percent see it as a source of additional income. The use of renewable energy on farmland has been brought to public attention in Britain by Michael Eavis, farmer and founder of the Glastonbury music festival, who installed over one thousand solar panels on his land.
The cost of installing renewable energy projects can be recovered after around 10 years, Clarke-Walker said. The UK government slashed state support for large-scale solar plants earlier this month as it was concerned a few huge commercial projects would scoop up money intended for household and community projects.
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