Canary Wharf office and retail spaces powered by Scottish windfarm

The Canary Wharf district’s offices and retail space will be powered soon by clean energy produced by a Scotland windfarm.

Canary Wharf Group which manages a 60-hectare estate (150 acres) in east London has signed a deal to get almost three quarters of its energy demand from wind.

This deal will help the UK’s largest corporate names, including EY and HSBC, who have offices in Canary Wharf to reduce their energy costs while reducing emissions.

Canary Wharf will be supplied with green energy by Brookfield, a fund manager headed by Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England. The company will grow its renewables portfolio by developing a new onshore Scottish windfarm, due to start generating electricity in 2026.

The estate manager had been buying renewable electricity from energy providers for the business district since 2012. But the deal with Brookfield will be the first time that it sources its clean electricity from a renewable project.

Shobi Khan is the Canary Wharf Group’s chief executive. He said that this 15-year contract could be extended in order to provide all 18m sq ft (or more) of Canary Wharf’s office, retail, and leisure spaces with 100 percent renewable electricity.

Khan stated that it took three years for the agreement to be reached, but this should result in a 50% reduction of electricity bills compared to using energy generated by gas-fired power plants. He said that the deal was part of a larger campaign to turn the estate into an environmental leader.

Khan said, “The idea is not just to do something good for our environment but also make it good business sense.”

Brookfield’s global portfolio of 25,000 megawatts – equivalent to all of the UK onshore and off-shore windfarms combined — has been used to sign clean energy supply agreements with 700 corporate clients.

Canadian Asset Manager’s Real Estate Investment arm owns 50% of Canary Wharf which was acquired in 2014.