The community wind turbine in Blackshaw Head has received its first Feed In Tariff payment. £1611 covered the period November and December 2012. This was for the generation of 5444 kWh of electricity, said Paul Wilson, treasurer of Pennine Community Power (PCP) – a Community Benefit Society with 65 members.
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Pennine Community Power’s community wind turbine at Blackshaw Head is up and running, generating an income for the local community.
Pouring concrete for the PCP turbine's base
Pennine Community Power (PCP) reports that
“With only a day to go, we are just short of the target. We can proceed with what we have, but a couple more investors will mean that we can have all the preferred options on the installation.”
If you have a spare £250 in the bank, you can put it to good use by buying a community share in PCP’s community benefit wind turbine.
At this very moment (7.30pm) Pennine Community Power, an offshoot of Blackshaw Environmental Action Team, is launching their community shares offer at the New Delight in Colden.
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There is a new national fund for community renewable infrastructure projects.
The first call for applications ended on 16th April, but there will be more calls later.
They want future applicants to fill out a pre-application form now (downloadable PDF).
What kind of funding is it?
The Community Generation Fund website says:
The Community Generation Fund will provide commercial but creative loan funding for communities at the pre-planning (“development”) stage of their projects, as well as the construction (post-planning) stage:
The Fund aims to provide access to capital at project stages or scales where funding is needed most but is not readily available. Please note therefore that the Fund is designed to supplement rather than replace traditional market sources. It is not a grant or “low/nil cost” scheme. …
What size project will they consider funding?
The Fund will consider project sizes from 25kWp capacity upwards, subject to assessment of technical viability, financial viability and social impact. The level of project typically is likely to involve total feasibility/pre-planning costs of £20,000-£150,000 maximum (depending on technology and scale) and construction costs of £250,000-£2,000,000 maximum.
The Fund prioritises support for communities with high levels of deprivation
At this launch stage, the Fund is focussed on supporting communities falling within the top 50% of latest Indices of Deprivation, with a particular desire to support those falling within the top 20% most deprived locations. To check your location, please see http://dclgexamples.mywebcommunity.org/imd_demo_v7.htm.
Who is behind the Community Generation Fund?
The Community Generation Fund has been developed by the FSE Group (FSE), working alongside our lead partner, National Energy Foundation (NEF)
The Energy Saving Trust’s blog reports on six community renewable energy schemes that are going ahead with support from the Rural Carbon Change Fund. The schemes are all in the North West.
Unfortunately, the Rural Carbon Change Fund is now closed to further applications.
Community renewables schemes funded by RCCF
Blencathra Renewable Energy – Low Carbon Vision
The Blencathra Field Centre’s Low Carbon Vision is to generate 86% of the centre’s energy from renewable sources, reducing their carbon emissions by 80%. A micro-hydro turbine will generate electricity. A biomass district heating system will supply heating and hot water. The Centre will offer education programmes about using these technologies.
Cheshire and Warrington Rural Biomass (CHERUB)
The Mersey Forest are creating a sub-regional cluster of biomass heating installations in Cheshire and Warrington, specifically targeting off gas grid community and business buildings, in order to provide training in the installation of the technologies.
Cockerham Green Energy Company
Cockerham Green Energy Company is a co-operative of local farmers who have received funds for a 330KW anaerobic digestion plant, which will produce heat and electricity to nearby farms. The plant will be fuelled by the waste products of the nearby farms, along with a small amount of excess grass silage.
Halton Carbon Positive
Lancaster Cohousing and Halton Community Association are partners in this project to install a woodchip-fuelled biomass district heating system and micro hydro turbine that will provide heat and electricity for homes in Halton, including 41 new eco-homes which Lancaster Cohousing is to build in the village. The new houses will be built to PassivHaus standard. This will be the first carbon neutral co-housing development in the UK. It includes the refurbishment of a mill to provide 16 eco-friendly work spaces.
Lancaster CoHousing is still accepting applications from people who want to live in the new houses
The deadline for new applications to be part of the Lancaster Cohousing project is 30 April
Generating Success
Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation (GMCVO) are developing a series of community renewable ‘Trailblazers’ designed to inspire rural community groups to deliver their own renewable projects. GMCVO are being funded to deliver the first three Trailblazers, which will include one new build community venue. Each of the Trailblazer venues will have solar PV installed.
Anaerobic Digestion Delivering Sustainability and Upland Prosperity (ADDS+UP)
Low Luckens Organic Resource Centre in north Cumbria will build a small scale anaerobic digester to provide heat and electricity for the farm, with some surplus exported to the National Grid. The Centre will use the carbon dioxide from the anaerobic digester to promote organic vegetable growth in polytunnels. (Raised levels of carbon dioxide act as a plant fertiliser.)
Blackshaw Head-based Pennine Community Power has won a grant of £30,000 from Village SOS, part of the Big Lottery Fund. The grant will part-fund a 10kW Bergey community wind turbine, to be erected on a 12 metre lattice tower at Blackshaw Head. It recently received conditional planning permission from Calderdale Council.
BEAT wind turbine will look like this
“We are over the moon with this grant,” says Ashley Sharp, one of the founding directors of Pennine Community Power. “The community wind turbine is just one of several projects we are working on. The grant is a huge boost to our work and I would like to thank everyone who has helped making this possible.”
Pennine Community Power is a new initiative of Blackshaw Environmental Action Team (BEAT) to develop community-based renewable energy.
As well as Ashley Sharpe, Pennine Community Power’s other founding directors are Paul Willson, Mark Simmonds and Finn Jensen.The directors have already agreed and sent the financial rules for Pennine Community Power to the Financial Services Authority, to register the company as an Industrial and Provident Society.
Pennine Community Power will plough all profits back into projects to make the community more sustainable. The community enterprise will be democratically controlled and in the next few months residents will be encouraged to invest and participate in the company.
“We still need to raise another £30,000 through community shares – a bigger hill to climb,” says Finn Jensen.
For more information about BEAT and Pennine Community Power e-mail finn.jensen@rocketmail.com.
Community group Repowering South London has launched its Solar 1 project and is offering a community share offer of £250 shares. This money will pay for putting several hundred square metres of solar pv panels on the roofs of the Loughborough Estate. The Brixton Energy twitter said they were almost there in terms of raising the money they need through the share offer. Inspiring.
Information about the Cooperative’s Community Energy Challenge
Calderdale Community Energy is working with people in Sowerby Bridge to develop a potential micro hydro scheme. The Halifax Courier has a brief story about this plus various reader comments.
Update 26th November 2012
Following the various comments on this story (see comments box, below), I asked Emma Appleton, the Carbon Partnership Officer for Calderdale MBC, if she could clarify the situation further. Emma recently emailed that,
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