A supermarket on the Isle of Wight is to become the first in the UK to operate entirely off grid, generating all its own business electricity and gas.
Waitrose in East Cowes has been granted planning permission for a biomass plant that will generate all of the store’s electricity, heating and cooling – giving it a carbon negative footprint.
The store will still get its business electricity from regular sources when it opens today (Thursday) but when the innovative biomass system is in operation next summer the supermarket will be entirely self sufficient.
The biomass scheme will be powered by woodchip taken from sustainably managed woodlands on the island.
Plans to convert an existing electricity substation into a biomass plant were first reported by GreenWise in July, and less than a year later the scheme should be up and running.
All 225 of Waitrose’s stores use green business electricity through supplier EDF, but now its parent company The John Lews Partnership is increasingly looking at on-site self generation to meet business energy needs.
Another Waitrose store that recently opened in Wimborne uses a biofuel generator for its business energy needs, while wind turbines are used at its farm in the Leckford Estate, Hampshire, while its Rickmansworth store is powered by its tomato suppliers.
You can read the full story at GreenWise.
Tags: Business Electricity, green business electricity, Green energy
