by tresoc | Apr 16, 2015 | Latest TRESOC News
We are currently visiting SDRHA tenants whose systems are up and running, explaining how to make the most of the free electricity they are getting, whilst managing the process of making appointments and scheduling installations.
“A number of tenants have commented to me how pleased they are with their new solar panels, and think it’s a great idea to install solar panels on as many properties as possible. They are particularly excited about receiving reduced fuel bills, which also meets one of SDR’s objectives of supporting our tenants to reduce fuel poverty” – Francis Bourke, SDR Operations Director
Watch this 3 minute video – we’re working in partnership to install arrays on tenants’ roofs from Exeter to Plymouth.
by tresoc | Mar 3, 2015 | Membership
GREAT NEWS! TRESOC members voted almost unanimously to accept bank loan finance and release our Share Issue investment of £258,000. As a result, we are now 1) progressing with Charity Bank loan documentation and 2) moving forward with the SHINE project – solar on the roofs of 77 Housing Association homes across the area. Next will come the purchase of the roof-mounted 50kW array at Hatchlands Farm. Then we can turn our attention to hydro and start organising our Creative Conversations, where we’ll open up the dialogue about the what, where, why and how of Community Energy.
View the minutes of the AGM and Director’s Report.
by tresoc | Feb 28, 2015 | Latest Blog Post
TRESOC is poised to launch the Shine Project! This is an extensive social housing roof-top solar project in the South Hams. It is worth noting that in 2014, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), more than 125,000 homes in the UK installed roof-top solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. The Shine Project alone will add over 70 homes to the 2015 tally. The installations will benefit from the feed-in tariff (FiT) offered by Ofgem, which gives a set income for each unit of electricity generated for the next 20 years. At the same time the tenants of the homes benefit from reduced electricity costs. Looking more broadly, the Solar Trade Association stated that 700MW of PV FiT projects were completed in 2014 in the UK. That is equivalent to about 58 million low-energy light bulbs! Ofgem reports that overall in the UK the FiT scheme has passed 3GW of installations. That is equivalent to an impressive 250 million low energy lights bulbs or 1.2 million electric kettles! The 3GW is made up of over half a million projects of which 99% are PV projects. By the way, the SW comes about tops with 16% of all FiT projects (London and the SE comes in second with 14%).
The scale of FiT installations is twice the number forecast by DECC. Clearly when these schemes are introduced there is good uptake. This reduces the need for building additional power stations – large infrastructure projects taking years to complete and at increasingly huge budgets. The 3GW FiT ‘power station’ was completed in 4 years. How’s that for keeping the lights burning! I have just returned from South Africa where the lights are not always burning due to a lack of capacity. Load shedding is happening and South Africans are subjected to electricity cuts for 2 hours a day on a rotational basis – and this is expected to go on for 2 to 3 years at huge cost to business and inconvenience residents. You may think, “Ah, but that is a developing country”. Well, the UK is getting dangerously close to the same situation – in winter 2011 there was a 17% reserve margin, this winter it is at only 4%. Generally a reserve margin of 15% is accepted as robust and able to handle any unforeseen power station failures – 4% seems quite a bit below this! In addition to helping with capacity, the uptake of FiT clean energy projects would also contribute to climate change mitigation. The UK Climate Change Act of 2008 sets out to reduce carbon emissions by 80% from the 1990 baseline by 2050. Any electricity generated by clean energy would help reach this target.
Decentralised locally owned power generation creates a more stable network and better power security. For this reason, and those above, it should be encouraged, right? So why then is the FiT programme being scaled back? The residential roof top solar FiT will fall for the first time since 2012 after April this year – that may well reduce the uptake. While it is widely thought that solar will become the cheapest form of energy there is a transition period where schemes such as the FiT will encourage the installation by community groups or individuals and clean energy will be fed into the national grid.
Despite the regression of FiT the growth of community energy continues to increase. Recently Albion Community Power in Scotland received a £50million loan from the UK Green Investment Bank and a further £10million from the Strathclyde Pension Fund. Albion is looking for £100million to invest in various renewable energy projects such as run-of-river hydro projects – that is flow through a hydro turbine and back into the river without major damming, similar to the proposed hydro plant at the River Dart weir in Totnes. The first Albion project is a 2MW hydro scheme in Chaorach north of Loch Lomond. The project pipeline also extends to onshore wind on previously used, and often contaminated, sites as well as projects of biogas from organic waste.
Business Secretary Vice Cable said in relation to Albion’s plans: “Renewable energy is the future”. Indeed, a Mintel study stated that 77% of people in the UK want more renewable energy and that 78% support PV on new houses. The survey stated that if we have to have an electricity generating plant in our backyard, then the most desirable is a solar farm while a large portion said that nuclear was the least desirable. It seems the sun is indeed shining on community and renewable energy!
Thanks to reNEWS (renews.biz) for much of the information regurgitated here –a newsletter appears daily in my inbox!
Alastair Gets
Project Officer
TRESOC
by tresoc | Feb 11, 2015 | News
The Government is proposing changes to the rules and regulations that govern the co-operative structures that are most suited to deliver community energy in the UK. Although this doesn’t affect us directly, the FCA is challenging the very foundations of co-operative endeavor, whereby capital raising and profit distribution go hand-in-hand with the realisation of social mission. Community Energy England have produced a briefing – backed by national orgs including CPRE – that highlights the main actions that are required to get the UK’s community energy revolution back on track. Please download and read it and write to your MP.
by tresoc | Feb 11, 2015 | Latest TRESOC News
We have achieved over a QUARTER of a MILLION pounds in local investment… £258,000 to be precise. Your investment (min £20, max £100,000) has kick-started our ready-to-go solar projects, bringing them into community ownership. Thank you for making an ethical, secure, investment in community-scale, clean energy installations… co-owned with your friends and neighbours. Millions have been raised by Community Energy groups across the UK – we have the power!
More good news – TRESOC has succeeded in meeting Charity Bank’s rigorous criteria and has received a “Heads of Terms” document for a loan of £356,000 based on two of the solar projects in our prospectus; 70+ Housing Association roofs and the purchase of the operating array on Hatchlands Farm barn.
by tresoc | Jan 14, 2015 | Latest TRESOC News
The Dartington Hall Trust has increased its investment in TRESOC at a key point in the Society’s growth. The Trust joined TRESOC as a corporate member in 2010 and recently chose to invest a further £20,000 in TRESOC’s current Share Issue, bringing the total raised so far to £230,570. Our members continue to email us words of support along with their investments: “the reward for small investors is definitely seeing the alternative energy base grow and develop. I and others will rejoice just to see the solar panels spreading!”
by tresoc | Oct 9, 2014 | Latest TRESOC News
Tresoc investors will know from our Prospectus that the Society is looking to raise £500,000 to £1,500,000 to fund a portfolio of hydro and solar projects. To date we have raised some £200,550, which is no small sum, but the income from this level of investment is not enough to cover our annual operating costs (admin, insurance, accountancy etc) even without paying directors. However, we are in discussions with Charity Bank with regards to a loan facility that might allow us to fund our projects and establish Tresoc as a viable business. We are very pleased to be working with this specialist lender whose aims fit well with our own, and who offer flexible loans and support to social enterprises. Please see Charity Bank’s website for more details.
We have met the Bank’s representative and on 29th September submitted our application for a loan that we could draw down, as and when needed. The application process is expected to take 6 to 8 weeks. During this process the bank will be determining whether, and on what terms, a loan may be made to us, and the Board will look in detail at our finance projections to ensure that any loan terms we agree fit with our aims to be a sustainable, growing organisation, paying a return on our members’ investments.
Meanwhile, the Board, in consultation with members, has decided to keep the share offer open on the terms outlined in the Prospectus, until such time as we have a decision on the Charity Bank loan. If we are successful in our application, the full details of the implications of the loan, and what it will allow us to achieve, will then be communicated with our members.
All monies received through this share offer are held in a dedicated deposit account and will be repaid in full if we do not raise sufficient capital to establish Tresoc as a going concern. There is still time for old and new members to invest in Tresoc and now is the time to show your support for renewable energy in community ownership.
Please call us 01803 867431 or email admin@tresoc.co.uk if you would like to discuss this or any other aspect of Tresoc.
by tresoc | Oct 8, 2014 | Latest TRESOC News
A fantastic total of £230,570 has been raised to date and we are still open for further applications. A heartfelt thank you to all our investors, old and new. After careful analysis of our finance model, we are pleased to have submitted our application to Charity Bank for a loan facility to enable us to make up the shortfall to the minimum target for this share issue.
For a useful summary of Questions and Answers on the new loan and what it will mean for Tresoc, you can view minutes from an update meeting held by the team with its members on 22nd July, 2014.
by tresoc | Sep 22, 2014 | News
The World Future Council’s new handbook shows how forward-looking communities around the world are already moving away from reliance on fossil fuels and generating their own power with 100% renewables – while also becoming more prosperous and creating jobs. The report, ‘How to Achieve 100% Renewable Energy‘, is released ahead of the UN Climate Summit in New York tomorrow, when the UN Secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, will call on world leaders to make new commitments to cut fossil fuel use. Read an overview in this article in The Ecologist.
by tresoc | May 28, 2014 | Membership
When we set up the IPS – based on our understanding of ‘Community of Place’ – we marked out an area of shareholder benefit (vs. operation) as Totnes and its fifteen surrounding parishes. Download a pdf of our original Boundary_map However, per member agreement at a Special General Meeting held on May 22, 2014, this reach broadened to a wider ‘Community of Interest’ described as ‘the community centred in Totnes and the surrounding area’.
A quick bit of background on that…
After extensive discussions and analysis of our financial modeling for TRESOC’s 2014 Share Issue, the Board have decided that the most appropriate way to raise finance is through share capital, or equity, rather than shares plus bonds. As a natural follow-on from this decision – and in order to increase our potential for raising this share capital – came the proposal to remove the Totnes and Environs boundary, so as to invite people from just outside the boundary and further afield to become members.
This will also allow those directly involved in the projects, but who live outside the 15-parish boundary, to become members, e.g. South Devon Rural Housing Association’s residents and board. It also gives us the opportunity to build awareness and support for Community Energy in the areas where our projects are located, e.g. Torquay Museum. We also have a growing list of people who have an interest in the area (ex-residents, would-be residents, frequent visitors, friends and family) who would become eligible.
You can access a copy of the minutes of this Special General Meeting here.
by tresoc | May 16, 2014 | Latest TRESOC News
Invest now to enable Housing Association tenants to benefit from free electricity.
This is a great opportunity to put you money in an ethical, secure, investment in community-scale, clean energy installations. Millions have been raised by community energy groups across the UK – we have the power!
“I’ve been following TRESOC’s fortunes for some years – and was strongly in favour of their (sadly) unsuccessful wind farm application 18 months ago. For me, TRESOC represents exactly the kind of organisation on which the future of energy in the UK will come increasingly to depend. Personally, I’ve invested £2,500 – and wish it could be a lot more. Over the last five years, I have set aside roughly £5,000 a year to invest in community energy schemes around the country. It just makes much more sense to me at the moment than sticking it in a pension pot!” – Jonathon Porritt
Download a Prospectus with Application Form Download an_Application_Form only
Request A Printed Prospectus
Read our Prospectus, then apply by returning the Application Form and a cheque to us – for £20 up to £100,000. Membership comes with TRESOC’s acceptance of your application and investment payment. Download our WHY INVEST CRIB SHEET to help spread the word.
by tresoc | May 16, 2014 | Latest TRESOC News
Torquay Museum
Update: This project is on hold until we are able to raise more funds and the Museum is in a position to pursue the project.
Ranked among the finest in South West England, Torquay Museum was built to house and display the collections of the Torquay Natural History Society, founded in 1844. The Venetian-Gothic style building dates back to 1874 and the land under the museum was leased for 1,000 years from the Cary family and rent was 1/- per year, which is still paid today.
Like many other museums of this era, energy efficiency was not a driving factor in it’s design, and measures such as insulation are difficult to incorporate retrospectively in a listed building. Visitors’ expectations have grown, such that lighting and heating now account for the museum’s high electricity bills – approx. £12,000 a year. Our project will see discreet, roof-mounted solar PV on a more modern extension that houses the museum’s archives, making a dent in those expenses. It is, however, a significant step in the museum’s Sustainability Plan, which may see TRESOC involved in developing a biomass boiler shared with the church next door!
A Co-operation Agreement is in place with the museum Trustees, the legal agreement for the lease is straightforward as there is no lender, and we have reviewed the land registry title deeds for the property (a lovely old style deed written by quill on parchment paper dating from 1874!).
“Torquay Museum are excited to be working with TRESOC to develop this innovative initiative. Not only will we be reducing our energy costs in real terms, we will also be part of the solution when it comes to tackling climate change. By installing renewable energy solutions we will be acting as a beacon for other cultural institutions in the region and fuelling an increasing awareness of the role organisations can play in encouraging behavioural change.
A huge benefit of our partnership with TRESOC is the opportunity to reach out to our community to invite investment, both financial and cultural. Through this scheme Torquay Museum will be able to build on its relationships within the community and become a fully integrated community asset.”
– Phil Collins, ex-Museum Director
