Our contractor, The Better Roofing Company will start installing the panels in April, and we will be running a share offer soon. If you are interested in subscribing, please register your interest using the Contact Us form and we will send you a further information when it is available.
We are planning on fitting around 50 KWp total of PV panels on Halton Mill and Forgebank housing for Lancaster Cohousing - equivalent to approximately 20 domestic installations. What makes this financially viable is that Lancaster Cohousing will be buying all the electricity that the panels will generate.
Our contractor, The Better Roofing Company will start installing the panels in April, and we will be running a share offer soon. If you are interested in subscribing, please register your interest using the Contact Us form and we will send you a further information when it is available.
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The dust has now settled on the Government's cut in the Feed in Tariff rates - they have been cut by more than half. MORE Renewables supported Friends of the Earth in their successful application for a judicial review - this found that the UK government had acted unlawfully in effectively implementing the cut before it had finished its public consultation. Two appeals by the government were unsuccessful, but by the time the process had run its course, it was too late for community energy companies to raise funds in order to fit PV panels for schools and the like.
The result of the much reduced Feed in Tariff is that, even with the price of PV panels reducing, it is only just about cost effective for a householder to do this on their own home. Typically the financial return is about 4% when you include both the FiT payment and the savings on electricity costs. This is more than building societies pay, and is index linked and tax tree - but of course you can't get your money out! This lower rate of return means if MORE Renewables fitted panels to Schools and other community buildings, even if the users paid us for the electricity generated by the panels, the best return we could offer investors would be around 2%. This is really too close to zero, for us to take the risk of running a share offer and carrying out the installations. If we found that we had extra costs, we might be able to pay no return at all. With FiT tariff rates due to go down again in July the future for community-funding PV projects does not look good. We have applied for support from The Co-operative Community Energy Challenge to develop a hydroelectric scheme at Skerton weir and are now through to the second round. A preliminary study by Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) found that the weir was one of the three most promising sites in the area. A hydro-electric scheme is one single very big installation (costing over £1M), and there is a longer and more complex process needed to deliver it. We need to have detailed hydrological, technical and ecological surveys done, and these will cost several thousand pounds each.
In 3-4 years, we hope to have the River Lune will be generating electricity for local homes and businesses. A similar scheme to the one we hope to install is at Otterspool weir in Stockport, where construction has recently started. This is also run by a community-owned renewable energy company, Stockport Hydro We were due to launch our Share Offer on w/c 14 November 2011. Unfortunately, on Monday 31st October, the Government announced a review of the Feed in Tariff, in which they proposed to cut the solar PV tariffs by over 50%, from the 12th December 2011. Unfortunately, this makes the MORE Renewables business model unworkable in it's existing form. While we had been expecting a cut, the magnitude and timing of the reduction means we cannot carry on as planned. So, our team met on Saturday to discuss what to do next. We have a functional organisation made up of willing people, who believe in the social and environmental benefits of small-scale renewable energy generation, so we are not giving up - we just need to work out the best way of moving forward.
One of our projects (Lancaster Co-housing) has expressed an interest in paying for the electricity generated by the PV system, so if we can work out a satisfactory deal with them, then a 50 kW system will probably be installed in the new year and a share offer launched to fund it. If you represent one of our existing projects and would like to talk to us about buying renewable electricity at a fixed, competitive rate for 25 years, please get in touch. Overall, we feel the way the Government has handled the FIT review has been extremely unhelpful. Currently, the new rates are subject to a consultation that ends on 23rd December (bizarrely, 11 days after the new rates are due to come into force) and we will - along with other similar organisations and industry members - be lobbying the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to make changes (such as a community tariff) that better protect community-focused organisations like ours. We would ask that anyone interested in influencing the results of the consultation, responds to it directly here and also signs the online petition here. Writing directly to your local MP and/or to Greg Barker MP (Minister of State for Energy & Climate Change) is also recommended. We would like to express our thanks to all those schools, colleges and community groups who supported our publicity and generously gave their time to help us develop our strategies, and to everyone else that has been involved. While we are disappointed to have to announce the curtailment of our original plan, we are hopeful that MORE Renewables will continue and that people's efforts will not have been wasted. If you have any questions or good ideas you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you. Lancaster’s One Planet Eco Festival success: reducing carbon, raising awareness and saving money17/10/2011 More than 200 people attended events throughout the weeklong festival full of ideas for sustainable living, reducing the city’s carbon footprint and reliance on fossil fuels and helping residents to save money.
The third One Planet Festival ran from 7-15 October 2011, at venues throughout Lancaster. Events included a ‘Tour de Renewables’ bike and minibus tour of homes, businesses and community buildings locally using renewable technologies. As well as environmentally themed films and talks, events included ‘Draughtbusting’ - a live draughtproofing house makeover, a radical gardening evening at the Dukes, an inspiring talk from the Centre for Alternative Technology about their radical plan for a Zero Carbon Britain, and information for people wanting to use renewable power in their own homes. An event to launch MORE Renewables, a unique opportunity to invest in local community renewable energy, attracted a crowd of 30 people, and several people have already expressed an interest in investing. Sam Usiskin of MORE Renewables said: ‘The launch was a success, next comes the publication of the Share Prospectus in early November – watch this space! Kathy New, coordinator of LESS Home Energy Project said: ‘The festival has been a real catalyst in making people aware of some of the fantastic activities running in the district to encourage people to save energy and cut carbon emissions. What has really impressed me is the enthusiasm people have for the topic, and the willingness to make positive changes. Tracey Turner, whose home was draughtproofed in front of a live audience in the ‘Draughtbusting’ event said: ‘Thankyou so much, this will really make a difference to the temperature in here.’ Anyone interested in campaigning against Fracking - hydraulic fracturing to extract shale gas can join the following email group: lancsagainstfracking@lists.riseup.net The One Planet Festival was organised by volunteers and LESS, a not-for-profit organisation which promotes sustainable living, in conjunction with Transition City Lancaster and the Dukes Cinema. For more information see website address www.lessuk.org/oneplanetfestival. The Investor FAQs are now up on the site. Click here to read.
The event to officially launch MORE Renewables is confirmed for 14 October at the Gregson Centre, Moor Lane, Lancaster.
Doors will open at 6:30pm, with presentations from MORE staff beginning at 7:30pm. We welcome potential investors, community building landlords and tenants and anybody else interested in what we are doing. We look forward to seeing you there! Sam Usiskin has started as the Project Coordinator for MORE.
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