Television’s River Cottage – renowned for its sustainable approach to food production – has expanded its green operation by forging a partnership with renewable electricity supplier Good Energy.
The new River Cottage series on Channel 4 shows founder Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall having a wind turbine installed on the premises. This will meet most of the power requirements of the River Cottage HQ operation, and any excess electricity generated will be taken by Good Energy.
Under the terms of the HomeGen scheme, which has already been installed at more than 500 homes across the UK, Good Energy will pay 15 pence for every unit of electricity produced, even those used on site. Home-based sustainable power sources include wind, small-scale hydro, solar power and biomass generators.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall said: “At River Cottage our philosophy of sustainability extends to the energy we use. We wanted to be part of the community of sustainable energy pioneers that supplies Good Energy, so we installed our own turbine at River Cottage HQ. We have been amazed by how much it generates and it’s great to see it flying around and know we are making our own clean green energy.”
River Cottage HQ is part of a growing empire that began at Fearnley-Whittingstall’s original River Cottage in Dorset in 1998, where he began to grow and rear his own food and cook with an emphasis on fresh, seasonal produce. River Cottage HQ is now a base for courses and events grounded in the same philosophy and covering skills from foraging and gardening to butchery.
The current premises were designed to have a holistic, sustainable infrastructure, using environmentally friendly building materials and incorporating a self-sufficient rainwater harvesting and recycling system, biomass heating, reed bed filters and a photovoltaic powered water pump. When the plans are fully implemented, River Cottage HQ will be a zero-carbon, off-grid site.
Juliet Davenport, founder and CEO of Good Energy, said of the latest partnership: “River Cottage has changed the way the nation thinks about food, and we hope they’ll do the same for the way we think about energy.”
Ed_N, Scotland around 2 years, 7 months ago