THE answer to Goonhavern Primary School pupils' environmental awareness is blowing in the wind.

Children at the school officially switched on their new wind turbine last Friday, after becoming the first in Cornwall to receive funding from the Co-operative's £2 million Green Energy for Schools scheme.

A monitor in the school will help pupils to keep track of how much energy the turbine is generating and the amount of carbon dioxide they have saved to date.

Nine-year-old Year 4 pupil, Danielle Burns, said: "Everyone is so excited about the new wind turbine and they keep looking at the monitor to see how much energy it is producing."

Installation of the 5kW turbine was made possible with a £10,000 Co-operative grant match-funded by £14,000 from the Government's Low Carbon Building Programme.

Mark Roberts, manager of The Co-operative food store in Perranporth, said: "By using a wind turbine to help power Goonhavern primary we can educate pupils about green energy while reducing the school's reliance on fossil fuels."

The Co-operative has spent more than £1 million installing solar panels at 100 schools across the UK since 2007, including at Bosvigo School, Truro.

It is now investing another £1 million to install solar panels at 60 schools and to pilot three extra renewable technologies – wind turbines, biomass boilers and ground source heat pumps at more than 20 schools.

Head teacher, Craig Hayes, said: "We are working on a number of initiatives to make Goonhavern primary a greener school and the switch-on of this wind turbine is an enormous boost to our efforts."

The 15 metre (49ft) turbine, set up by UK wind turbine installer Sundog Energy, is expected to generate 7,470 units of electricity each year – enough to make 370,000 cups of tea – saving 4.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide.