BEEF and sheep farmers from across Cornwall have set up a co-operative company to sell 'green' electricity.

From next year Cornish Renewable Energy Ltd will allow the nine farms taking part to provide electricity to local businesses and other customers from 18 wind turbines – two per farm.

Planning permission has been secured and the group has now applied for a Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) grant to help it pay for the construction work.

Chairman Royston Symons, who farms near Bude, said: "This is a very exciting moment, which marks the end of several years' painstaking research and preparation.

"It will give us a means of using our natural assets to stay profitable where we are, and to increase the proportion of emission-free power generation in Cornwall."

The co-operative has received financial and action-planning support through the South West Rural Enterprise Gateway (REG).

Mr Symons added: "We looked at a wide range of options, including growing crops for biomass, but decided that wasn't right for us.

"Then we looked at generating hydro-electricity, but found our farm location provided the wrong kind of water – we have insufficient height for it to run at sufficient speed."

Once wind power was identified as the preferred route, the most immediate priority was to secure planning permission for two 20-kilowatt turbines per farm.

Mr Symons said: "We want to have the foundations in place this year, and have completed all the construction work in time to go live next year.

"We are already talking to local companies who are interested in buying electricity from us."

REG project officer Caroline Hanlan said it had been an enormously complex, long-term project that had benefited from planning that she and the group had carried out together. Visit www.regsw.org.uk, or call 0845 600 9966 for more information.