This funding will help us deliver on our busy pipeline, which includes a portfolio of new clean energy developments through a £20 million investment in Ethical Power. We also plan to fund more ‘direct wire’ solar projects, giving UK businesses access to a direct supply of clean electricity, and support community energy groups in building their own clean energy projects locally – like our recent £4 million investment in Scottish community energy group, ATTIX CIC.

Other recent development projects include providing £4 million funding to construct England’s largest onshore wind turbine, which is wholly community-owned, and a 20 MW battery in our home city of Bristol, plus a total of £6 million investment in United Downs – the UK’s first deep geothermal electricity generation plant in Cornwall, which is also set to provide commercial quantities of lithium for EV batteries.

This successful crowdfund comes as new Thrive research – conducted by Opinium, found that retail investors could unlock over £214 billion worth of investments needed to fund UK net zero infrastructure ambitions. Read more about the research here.