Lundy Island commands an important strategic position in the sea lanes between south Wales, the north coasts of Devon and Cornwall and the Western Approaches. Its history includes occupation by pirates, contested ownership and poor governance and it was only formally recognised as part of Devon in 1974. 

In 1986 the seas around Lundy were declared Britain’s first statutory Marine Nature Reserve and in 2010 the area was designated as the UK’s first Marine Conservation Zone.

Less well known is that it was also the first place in England to install a stand-alone wind generator. Lundy has plenty of wind, a mean average of 6m/second, and so is ideal for wind power. In 1982 a Danish built Windmatic 55kw was purchased, ideal because it could be erected using basic equipment. The aim was to utilise surplus power to heat water and properties, enabling Lundy to stay open off season. Night storage heaters with special elements were installed, controlled by frequency sensitive switching. Each property had a control box that switched heaters on and off according to the frequency of output. If the wind speed increased the turbine would try to go faster triggering frequency-controlled load, which kept the machine stable. In the first 4 months the turbine contributed 45,514kwh, 88% of island demand. 

In the 1980s wind turbines were quite basic and if all else failed flaps had to be opened on the blades to control the machine. The turbine also required considerable maintenance to ensure it remained stable. There were times when it could not be stopped from the ground which necessitated climbing the tower in a strong wind, opening a door and winding on a brake using a spanner. The resulting vibrations shaking the engineer in a very perilous manner. The turbine operated well until 1996 when a cable parted whilst lowering the tower and the machine crashed to the ground.

Twenty-eight years later, in 2023, the Crown Estate announced it would lease out seabed for floating wind power to be built in the Celtic Sea before 2035. Each proposed floating farm will be 1 gigawatts capacity and the turbines will be world breaking in size – with blades over 100 meters long and towers up to 150m above sea level. A very different size and scale from the 1980s when, on Lundy Island, Northern Devon was already leading the way in developing wind powered energy supply.