LCA invests in renewables company

Low Carbon Accelerator has announced that it has invested £500,000 in Vigor Renewables in the form of non-voting Preference Shares with rights over 90 per cent of the distributable profits.

The Ordinary Shares are held by the management of Vigor, with rights over the balance of the distributable profits.

Vigor is a new company formed to take advantage of UK feed-in tariffs. It aims to partner with landowners, as well as commercial property owners and managers, to build, own and operate wind- and solar-power-generating assets on sites across the UK.

Each asset will be designed and built to qualify for the recently announced UK feed-in tariffs, which come into effect at the beginning of April 2010. The tariffs guarantee an inflation-linked income for sub-5MW renewable-energy projects, payable to the developer for 20 years in the case of wind developments and 25 years for solar.

Vigor will design, build, own and operate the installations, while the site owner will receive either rental income or discounted electricity prices for the duration of the feed-in-tariff payment period.

Vigor is currently in negotiation on options for over 15 sites, including agricultural plots for small-scale wind projects and industrial sites for solar projects based on roof and land space.

The first project is scheduled to start during the summer of 2010. Each project is likely to take between three and six months to complete, from site identification to power generation.