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Date: 9 December 2025
Category: Climate and biodiversity
Belfast City Council has become the first organisation to sign up to receive green electricity from the city’s newest wind farm.
The contract, with 3T Power, will see some of the city’s most famous venues powered solely by renewable energy for the first time. They include City Hall, St George’s Market, Belfast Castle, Belfast Zoo, 2 Royal Avenue and over 200 other buildings, including leisure and community centres.
The electricity will be transferred from the firm’s latest wind farm project at Ballyutoag in the Belfast Hills, onto the NI grid and then used by council-owned venues, reducing its carbon footprint and climate impact.
While renewable energy had been used at some council venues previously, this is the first time the entire council supply will be taken from a NI-based renewable source, supporting jobs creation locally.
Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Tracy Kelly, said: “We want to lead by example and do our part to make a real difference to cutting emissions and encouraging others to do the same.
“As the city’s community planning authority, we have taken the lead in shaping and paving the way for a greener and more sustainable city, with transformational projects which will, in time, see real changes to how we live, work and future-proof our city.
“This contract underlines our own ambitions as an organisation to modernise and future-proof our buildings and, as the owner of one of the largest estates in the city, we want to encourage others to do the same – to put their shoulder to the wheel and work with us to help make the city’s climate change targets a reality.”
Thomas Kelso, 3T Power Director, said the firm was delighted to provide energy towards the council’s portfolio of office buildings, leisure centres, community hubs and events and tourism venues.
He said: “The development of a wind farm on the doorstep of Belfast has been years in the making and we are proud to see the site going live this autumn. This significantly increases 3T Power’s capacity, and Belfast City Council’s confirmation as the site’s first customer reflects the leadership position the council has taken on embracing sustainability and lowering its carbon footprint.
“We look forward to additional businesses from Belfast and beyond joining in partnership through our Renewable Energy Adjustment tariff, which enables customers of all sizes and energy requirements to benefit from price transparency, a clearer idea of where your power comes from, and the ability to lower costs when green power is more plentiful on the grid.”
Improving energy efficiency and reducing reliance on fossil fuels to heat buildings is a key action in the city’s Local Area Energy Plan, launched in September 2024.
Driven by the Belfast Net Zero Delivery Group, this plan sets out goals for city partners to ensure Belfast achieves zero carbon emissions by 2050, as well as building a shared resilience between the council and its community planning partners around the challenges posed by climate change.
Other council-led initiatives in the last year have included the delivery of UPSURGE, an EU-funded demonstrator site at Lower Botanic Gardens, testing sustainable horticultural and soil management practices, together with Queen’s University and community groups; securing £300,000 of funding from Innovate UK to progress the development of two other projects in the Local Area Energy Plan – a heat network in the city centre and rooftop solar - both to help drive forward decarbonisation; the progression of a neighbourhood-led approach to improving energy efficiency in homes, through the Belfast Retrofit Hub; and developing a net zero neighbourhood framework via the EU-funded UP2030 project.