THE Queen is ready to go green and run the world’s largest occupied castle on hydroelectric power.

A £1 million, four-turbine, energy-efficient plant enabling the change at Windsor Castle has been granted full planning permission and will be built at Romney Weir on the River Thames. It will generate 200 kilowatts, about a third of the energy required to power the castle.

A spokeswoman for the Queen said: “We’re constantly looking at ways of saving energy. We use energy efficient light bulbs at Buckingham Palace and recycle 99 per cent of green waste.”

Members of the Royal Family have long embraced an environmentally friendly lifestyle. The Duke of Edinburgh uses a taxi cab fuelled by liquid petroleum gas to travel around London, and water in a bore hole at Buckingham Palace is used to supply air conditioning to the Queen’s gallery before topping up the water levels in the Palace lake.

The electricity from the new plant will be fed straight into Windsor Castle and not into the local grid. It will be the biggest of its kind in the South of England. Four turbines, which will be built by npower renewables, will be submerged in two of Romney Weir’s bays.

Friends of the Earth, the environmental campaign group, welcomed the news and said that the Queen was setting an example. Tony Juniper, the group’s director, said: “We’re delighted that the Queen is taking a lead in the use of green electricity to help to tackle global warming. It highlights the massive potential for small-scale micro-generation systems within the UK.”

The application for the project was submitted to Windsor and Maidenhead council in February last year. On Friday the plans were fully approved. Npower renewables has pledged to ensure that the new structure is incorporated into the existing weir and made as unintrusive as possible.

Alastair Gill, the company’s hydro development manager, said: “As well as being carefully designed to fit into the surroundings, the project will have little impact on the ecology, navigation and marine life of the river.”

A feasibility study will be conducted. Construction is expected to begin next year, enabling Windsor Castle to start using green electricity before the end of next year.

Mr Juniper called for the Government to help others to become more energy efficient. “The Government should make it easier for people to fit green energy systems as part of a renewed effort to turn round its failing strategy to combat climate change,” he said.

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