Durham energy group reveals £18m increase in renewables demand

A Durham energy and property firm has reported that it saw a “record year” across its renewable energy businesses.

The Banks Group, headquartered in Meadowfield, has announced that sales in its Banks Renewables division rose by £18m from £43m to £61m in 2020.

The company said that the increase in sales came as a result of the first full year of trading for its Kype Muir and Middle Muir wind farms in Scotland.

However, the company’s mining division saw turnover drop from £47m to £30m during the year, with its property business falling further from £16m to £2.5m due to coronavirus restrictions.

Overall, the group’s combined profits for the year totalled £15m, down by 16 per cent from the previous year’s £15m.

Simon Fisher, group finance director at The Banks Group, commented: “Despite the challenges posed in 2020, the board continues to believe the business is in good shape to maximise the opportunities available from the markets in which we operate and for results to remain strong, although with some volatility.

“As it is unlikely that approval will be granted for any future surface mines in the UK, our mining team is being redirected to explore other opportunities which will draw on the group’s skills and experience in new areas of industrial support and mineral extraction, and we have some exciting prospects in place which we expect to see come to fruition in the coming months.

“We remain unique in using the revenues we have generated through our coal mining business to establish a strong renewable energy division supporting the UK’s transition to net zero carbon emissions which is continuing to go from strength to strength.

“Two of our planned onshore wind sites in southern Scotland with a potential combined capacity of around 170MW now have full planning consent and detailed development work is underway to bring these into operation in the coming years.

“Alongside our growing portfolio of onshore wind farms, we are also bringing forward planning applications for a number of new schemes around the UK which use renewable and flexible generation technologies.

“Our Barnsdale solar energy park in West Yorkshire won the backing of Leeds City Council’s planning committee earlier this month, and further similar projects are expected to follow in the near future.

“All the property sites we expected to sell in 2020 will come later, so while the nature of the development portfolio will involve volatility of revenues, a strong recovery in this business area is expected, especially with many sites in their later stages of development.

“All our operations have continued to bring a wide range of long-term local benefits to the communities in which they are based, in line with our Development with Care approach, and we are proud of the substantial continuing contribution that our schemes enable us to make to the excellent work of our local community groups and good causes, something which has been especially important over the last year.”