Electricity demand to deal with these extremes was high, and in those days was generated largely by fossil fuel – 70% of demand was met by coal, oil and gas power stations, with just 1.1% from wind and solar. Fast forward to 2024, and wind and solar energy managed to meet more than 50% of our electricity needs.

How did this transformation happen? As with many stories of transformative impact, it was a combination of individual passion, corporate expertise, and nurturing different expectations of the future.

Individual passion for green energy was rare in 1995, when public understanding of climate change and its causes was limited. However, communities were coming together to fund their own wind turbines, and entrepreneur Dale Vince was starting up Ecotricity, originating from the wind turbine he used to power his off-grid home on a hill above Stroud in Gloucestershire.

Triodos brought a unique combination of corporate expertise and expectations of the future to this emerging sector.

The green power pioneers

In the Netherlands, Triodos financed the first wind turbine in the country back in 1986. The fallout from the Chernobyl plant caused problems for many farmers, who as a result were enthusiastic about installing wind turbines on their farms. Yellow “Atoomenergie? Nee Bedankt” (“Nuclear Power? No Thanks”) badges were everywhere and the expectation of a different energy future was supported by Triodos, successfully lobbying government in the Netherlands for tax incentives on green investments and subsidies on green power generation, which had their equivalents in UK regulations.

Senior relationship manager David Hawes led the bank’s early developments in wind farms in the UK in the 1990s and continued to work at the bank until early 2025. He was able to draw on experience from the bank’s roots in the Netherlands: “The typical Netherlands project was a farmer putting a single turbine on his land, so the bank built its expertise at that level of the market, which other corporate finance providers wouldn’t consider – the projects were too complex for them to see a return, but we already knew how to make them a success.”

“Therefore, we had a few years’ start on the others. At that stage in the UK you had two types of development, the utility companies who were starting to build wind farms as part of their generation mix, but without any real passion for the idea; and committed groups and individuals looking to fund turbines out of an emerging belief that fossil fuels needed to end and renewables were the future. We set up The Wind Fund plc to meet that demand,” explains David. 

The Wind Fund plc, which eventually evolved into Thrive Renewables plc, was established by Triodos and set out its objectives in its first financial statement in 1995: “The Wind Fund Plc was established to provide equity finance for small-scale renewable energy projects. The principal activity of the company is direct investment in the development and operation of small-scale renewable energy projects such as wind farms and hydro schemes. It provides a mechanism for individuals and institutions to invest directly in renewable energy opportunities.”

Meanwhile Dale Vince was taking his own route towards his first wind turbine, as he explains in his 2020 book, Manifesto: “Around this time I met Triodos; they were a new kind of bank, an ethical one - something that's still rare today: They were from Holland, just setting up in Britain, and they were willing to not only lend me the money to build the windmill, but to let me build it myself. Hooking up with Triodos meant we could build this first windmill but also complete the final part of the job ourselves. We still work with Triodos nearly 25 years later. Long-term relationships like these are empowering and they only come about through fairness and honesty on both sides. There's nothing much better than working with people you can trust.”

Passion for a new future

For David Hawes, having The Wind Fund and Ecotricity as separate projects progressing in parallel meant he had to balance different approaches:

“We laid out the project documents in the Triodos boardroom, the Wind Fund at one end and Ecotricity at the other. I had Dale coming from the big picture side, and Wind Fund with directors very high on detail. At the beginning you could see the contrast but the documentation ended up being remarkably similar. You need three things for a viable wind project – planning permission, a grid connection, and a land lease. All of a sudden, those arrive along with a contract to supply electricity, and you are in business”.

While Ecotricity represents the individual passion of one man, the Wind Fund enabled groups of passionate individuals to fund their new expectations of the future. From its first wind farm investment in Haverigg in Cumbria in 1998 as the Wind Fund, now Thrive Renewables has celebrated its thirtieth anniversary with £63 million raised in crowdfunding from 6,000 investors, going into projects which together have avoided over one million tonnes of CO2. Meanwhile, Ecotricity currently has 24 wind parks which are home to 74 wind turbines, generating enough green energy to power over 56,000 homes, with the company continuing to reinvest its profits into building new renewable energy infrastructure.  

Leading the charge in renewable energy

So how does Triodos continue to nurture those different expectations of the future exemplified by The Wind Fund plc and Ecotricity?

“Building on that very early foundation the energy system remains one of the five big transitions in society that we as a bank are focused on,” says Triodos Bank UK’s head of energy and project finance, Amandine Têtot. “We want to see the economy moving away from fossil-based energy production to green energy generation that is accessible and affordable for everyone, and that contributes to energy independence for the most vulnerable populations. Back in 2012, we started taking a building’s energy certificate into account for the interest rate of our commercial lending, and in 2024 Triodos was ranked as Clean Energy Pipeline’s most active lead arranger for renewables projects for the eighth time, advising on the highest number of transactions across a multitude of green technologies.”

Since 1986 – when it took an exploding nuclear reactor to direct attention to wind and solar power generation – public expectations of the future have changed, and Triodos’ deep corporate expertise in financing green energy has positioned the bank in the forefront of the energy transition. As Thrive Renewables chair Jo Butlin puts it:

“What is clear from these achievements is that there is power in community. It’s what has seen renewables go from the pursuits of a humble few in the early 90’s to mainstream today, meeting over half of the UK’s power needs for the second time in 2024. We believe that collaboration is what will continue to fuel growth as we work towards fully decarbonising the economy by 2050.”