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Swedish furniture retailer IKEA's UK division has acquired a 12.3MW wind farm in Aberdeenshire, north Scotland. The farm consists of seven turbines and produces electricity sufficient to cover 30 per cent of the company's UK consumption. It is the first UK purchase of a wind farm by IKEA and brings the number of turbines owned by the company to 67.
IKEA UK also announced it will be spending almost £4m to fit more than 39,000 photovoltaic (PV) panels onto the rooftops of ten UK stores. The installations should provide electricity for around five per cent of each shop's electricity requirements. It said construction for this project should be finished by March 2012 and the facilities will be built to operate for 25 years.
The company claimed energy efficiency measures have allowed it to reduce consumption by 19 per cent and that since 2005 it has opened six UK stores with only a ten per cent increase in combined energy use.
Steve Howard, chief sustainability officer of the Ikea Group, said, 'We believe that our wind farm and solar panel initiatives mark a major milestone in our ambition to source 100 per cent renewable energy. We aim for all IKEA UK buildings to be fitted with solar panels in the long-term. As well as reducing our impact on the environment, these initiatives come with a strong financial incentive as consuming less energy means we spend less money, which helps us lower the prices on our products.'
Last June, IKEA completed a rooftop installation at its Palo Alto store in California, US, and in April fitted a New York store with solar units.
