Foresight Group and Belltown Power UK have expanded their joint venture to fund UK onshore wind repowering projects, with an initial target to deliver at least 500MW of clean energy capacity.

The Belltown RePower platform is seeded with five onshore wind assets totalling approximately 125MW of operational capacity across Scotland and England.

The seed assets include the Bowbeat Repowering and Cruach Mhor Repowering projects in Scotland, as well as three further sites across southern Scotland and England.

As part of the expansion, existing ageing turbines will be replaced with fewer, larger and more efficient modern units, while the joint venture also plans to target new greenfield onshore wind developments across England and Wales.

No financial details were disclosed.

Chris Tanner, partner at Foresight, said: “Belltown RePower positions Foresight at the forefront of what we believe will be a critical and highly interesting UK onshore wind development strategy over the next decade. Repowering offers a differentiated and efficient route into a scarce part of the UK renewables market, particularly at a time when conventional early-stage development has become increasingly challenging.

“This is precisely the kind of specialist, structured development exposure where Foresight’s market knowledge, disciplined governance and established relationship with Belltown can add significant value.”

Paul Hewett, CEO of Belltown Power UK, said: “Our highly productive relationship with Foresight continues to allow us to rapidly develop next generation infrastructure that will be critical to delivering a low-cost, secure and clean future energy system for the UK.

“Repowering, expanding and optimising aging sites is crucial to that mission and our innovative strategy has placed Belltown RePower at the forefront of onshore wind repowering in the UK.”

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