Lanchester Group: the world’s first carbon-negative wine business

Lanchester Group is a vineyard-to-table wine company near Newcastle, England. They aim to be the most sustainable wine business in the world, producing ‘carbon-negative’ wine. An important part of achieving this objective is by generating more renewable energy than they use.

Their three EWT DW52-500kW wind turbines generate about 5.5 million kilowatthour of zero-carbon electricity per annum. Approximately 50% is used to power their 440,000 square foot site, including their wine bottling plant and charging points for their fleet of electric vehicles. Any surplus electricity is fed into the local grid network.

The three wind turbines are part of a £4.5m investment project by Lanchester Energy, which also comprises air source heat pumps to modulate office temperatures and roof-mounted solar panels.  The use of cutting edge low-carbon technology has the two-fold effect of ensuring the Group grows in a sustainable way as well as future-proofing the business against rising energy costs.