Impact report 2023
Vision: a world where everyone can be part of the clean energy generation.
Mission: putting money to work building new sustainable energy projects and empowering people to take action to address the climate emergency.
In what has been a record-breaking year for the climate, breaching the 1.5 degree heating milestone for a 12 month period, we have allocated £12.3 million to developing new clean energy projects, with 25MW of new capacity installed and a further 41.5MW in development or construction in 2023.
Our clean energy projects generated 136,316 MWh of renewable electricity last year, that’s enough to power over 42,000 average UK homes and deliver emissions reductions equivalent to 58,620 tCO2e.
Other highlights from 2023 include:
- Recertified as a B Corp with a score of 131.1, meaning we score in the top 3% of all UK B Corps on impact.
- Continued to support community ownership – providing a £4 million loan to ATTIX CIC to fund the construction of a wind turbine in North Ayrshire, Scotland and giving Bristol Energy Cooperative an opportunity for co-ownership in our 20MW Bristol battery.
- £5.1 million raised for new projects via crowdfunding, welcoming over 300 new shareholders to the Thrive community.
A full analysis of our impact can be accessed in our 2023 Annual Report here.
Enviromental impact1
Social impact
Development projects
“Thrive Renewables has had an excellent year, in which we’ve continued to deliver strong environmental, social and financial performance. We allocated £12.3 million to new wind, solar, storage and geothermal energy projects over the course of 2023, with 25MW brought into operation and 41.5MW in development or construction.
As we enter our 30th year of operation, we have pledged to double the amount of new generation we invest in over the next five years. This starts with funding and we were pleased to have raise £5.1 million via crowdfunding in 2023. We have also committed a further £11 million of cash generated from operations to fund our strong pipeline of projects for 2024 and beyond. As the need for a cleaner energy system only intensifies, we believe that – together – we can build the projects the UK needs to power our daily lives more cheaply and sustainably.”
Matthew Clayton, Managing Director, Thrive Renewables
Read our annual report
Read our annual report
Net zero policy
Net zero policy
Certified B Corporation
Certified B Corporation
Procurement and supply chain
Procurement and supply chain
1 Impact Portfolio describing Thrive’s share of projects owned plus the projects Thrive is funding.
2 Calculated using the most recent statistics from the DESNZ showing that UK average domestic household consumption is 3,239 kWh per annum (https://www.renewableuk.com/page/UKWEDExplained)
3 Average residents per household 2.4 (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsand
marriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2020), Population of Preston is 99,198 (https://www.thegeographist.com/uk-cities-population-1000/).
4 The average electricity consumption of an electric vehicle (EV) is 266Wh per mile based on the most popular EV models (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-licensing-statistics-2022/vehicle-licensing-statistics-2022), and vehicle data from EV Database (https://ev-database.uk/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-electric-car). This means our impact portfolio generation could power 513,249,727 miles travelled by a ‘typical’ EV. Assuming the UK average annual milage of 6,600, this would power 77,765 EVs (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/nts09-vehicle-mileage-and-occupancy). Latest UK government licensing statistics report UK EV fleet as 694,890 (June 2023).
5 RenewableUK uses DESNZ’s “all non-renewable fuels” emissions statistic of 424 tonnes of carbon dioxide per GWh of electricity supplied in the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (July 2023) Table 5.14 (“Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from electricity supplied”. Carbon reduction is calculated by multiplying the total amount of renewable electricity generated by Thrive’s impact portfolio per year by the number of tonnes of carbon which fossil fuels would have produced to generate the same amount of electricity.
6 We are not able to source a nationally recognised means of calculating the water saving generated by generating electricity using wind and solar. The power sector consumes over 40% of Europe’s water, mainly for cooling purposes. Nuclear consumes approximately 2.7m3/MWh, gas plants 0.7m3/MWh and coal plants 1.9m3/MWh (https://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/files/library/publications/reports/Saving_water_
with_wind_energy.pdf). Our crude, but intentionally conservative analysis, using the UKs 2022 generation mix, provides a conservative average water consumption per MWh figure which attributes no water consumption to other thermal sources such as oil and bioenergy, or hydro. We have multiplied Thrive’s impact generation by this factor, assuming that if our renewable projects had not generated this electricity, the UK grid mix would have (Energy Trends March 2023, Table 5.1 – Electricity generated by fuel main table (all generating companies).