North Pickenham Windfarm is an eight turbine windfarm located on the old North Pickenham airfield, two miles south east of Swaffham in the Breckland district of Norfolk and 25 miles west of Norwich. 

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It first started generating electricity in November 2006 and in its first year of production it produced 44Gwh of electricity, the equivalent to supplying 9,300 average households. 

The eight turbines used here are Vestas V90's. The towers were manufactured by Vestas-Celtic in Campbelltown, Scotland and all remaining components were made in Denmark. Each turbine stands 80m (metres) tall to the rotor hub (nacelle) and has 90m diameter rotor blades making a total height of 125 m. The output capacity of each turbine is 1.8MW , which is fully utilized when the wind blows in excess of 14 m/s (metres per second). Once this speed is exceeded, the rotor blades start to ‘feather' and the turbine continues to produce the 1.8MW of electricity. At this wind speed the blades will turn at approximately 18 rpm (revolutions per minute). The electricity from the turbine is generated at 690V (volts), which is then stepped up through a transformer to link with the grid at 33KV (kilovolts). The grid connection is at the electricity substation just south west of Swaffham.

A map showing the turbine locations

Following the completion of the wind farm, a trust fund was set up for the local community.  This is available for a variety of community-based projects.  Guidelines on the application to the trust fund are available to view from the downloads section.