A company hoping to carry out a £20million upgrade of a wind farm on the Lizard Peninsula is on high this weekend after holding a "positive" open day on Saturday.

Cornwall Light and Power has unveiled plans to develop its Goonhilly Downs site, by replacing the 14 existing turbines with seven, taller ones.

Staff behind the project claim that the result would be enough power to supply 10,000 homes - enough to cover all the households in the Helston and Lizard area. The site currently only generates enough electricity to power 2,000 homes.

On Saturday, the company invited all interested residents to visit the site and see how it works, as well as view the proposed plans. They were also given the chance to go inside a turbine, to give them a better idea of the technology behind it.

Neil Crudgington, operations manager with the company, said he was pleased with the outcome of the event, which saw between 60 and 70 people attend over the course of the day.

Mr Crudgington said: "It went very well and we generally had a pretty positive response. We were just keen to get a bit of interaction and get local people in, to give them a chance to see some of the plans. We were happy with the day."

The wind farm began production back in 1993, with the aim of producing "green" electricity. The company has said their proposed scheme would dramatically reduce the dependence of The Lizard on fossil fuel and generated electricity, although homes would remain connected to the national grid to ensure continuity and reliability of the supply.

No time-scale has yet been set, but those behind the project have said it could be constructed and operational as early as 2009, provided a planning application was submitted by the end of this year.

The company is currently in discussions with the Ministry of Defence and BT, as well as Kerrier district council, RNAS Culdrose and Goonhilly Earth Station.