We’re delighted to be hosting Mary Gillie, Founder and Director of Energy Local, for a talk at the REconomy Centre in Totnes on Tuesday 15th March, between 6-7pm. Energy Local is a Community Interest Company transforming the electricity market for communities and small-scale renewable generators. Their mission is to help communities get more value from small-scale renewable generation by using the electricity locally. Thanks to a grant of £25,000 from Team Devon’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery and Business Prospectus Funding, TRESOC will be developing up to five new community-owned rooftop solar PV installations in Totnes. These will combine to establish an Energy Local Club in Totnes (Energy Local Totnes) to buy the electricity generated, effectively establishing Totnes’s own renewable energy marketplace. Within an Energy Local Club, householders and small businesses pay a lower price for electricity if they use renewable energy from local generators when it is generated; the customer pays less, and the generator receives more. Right now, people living near renewables purchase the electricity back for three or four times the price the generator is paid for it.
There are many community and environmental benefits to an ELC. The community benefits from reducing fuel poverty by selling energy affordably and allowing locally owned generators more control over pricing, all keeping the profits in the local economy. The environment benefits by customers reducing their reliance on fossil fuels.
TRESOC are looking for five large south-facing roofs – they could be a school, a row of terraces or an industrial building – and for householders and businesses to join the Club and use the green, local, cheaper energy. They are also looking for someone to train as an energy advisor and to run the club. This will be a paid, part time role with flexible hours so would suit a parent with young children. In addition, volunteers will be needed to support setting up the Club and to be members of the Energy Local Totnes board.
TRESOC will own and operate the solar PV on each of the 5 sites (approximately 250kW, enough to power to boil 250 kettles at peak output) and will raise the capital to install the panels through a community share-offer, which means all profits from the scheme will return to the local economy. The occupiers of each site will have a Power Purchase Agreement with TRESOC for the energy used on site and any excess electricity will be sold into the Energy Local Club within the local substation area. The scheme will be supported by Energy Local CIC, who have established several Clubs in England and Wales. Totnes Energy Local Club will be the first to allow local small businesses to take part. Once the Club is established new generators can join, balanced by new customers, and the club can continue to grow. To take part generators and members of the club need to sign up to the same energy tariff, an Energy Local Tariff, that is currently being provided by Octopus Energy.
Anyone who would like to be involved in the Club, as an energy advisor, a member, a board member, or who knows of a large south facing roof, please email admin@tresoc.co.uk or call TRESOC on 01803 867431. And come to the talk! Places are limited to please book, again by emailing admin@tresoc.co.uk.
TRESOC and Transition Homes Community Land Trust (THCLT) are thrilled to announce TRESOC’s award of a second Government grant, for £79,710, from the Rural Community Energy Fund (RCEF). The money will be used for the development of a Community Microgrid and Solar scheme at THCLT’s Clay Park development. THCLT has planning permission for 31 highly energy-efficient eco-homes and are currently submitting a planning application to add eight more homes to the site to help balance the books. This application also includes plans to increase the biodiversity of the site through extra tree planting, marsh plants in the damper areas and bird, bee and bat boxes to house wildlife. The housing development will offer a choice of affordable rent or shared ownership for local people in housing need. It has invited TRESOC to become the energy supplier, and to own and operate the energy system.
The innovative microgrid design will enable residents to maximise the use of the 160kW rooftop Solar PV, by sending the green energy to wherever it is needed on site, rather than feeding it back to the grid as is customary. This will make it more efficient and enable the green energy to be sold to the residents at a reduced market rate. TRESOC envisages this to be 10% less than grid price, minimising residents’ energy bills. The energy system software will further maximise energy savings by heating hot water from the daytime solar.
TRESOC received a Stage 1 RCEF Grant to carry out a feasibility study that demonstrated the project is technically and economically viable. The Stage 2 Development Grant will now pay for the technical, legal, financial and community engagement work to take the project to the point of being finance ready.
Jon Rattenbury, Programme Manager for the SW Energy Hub, said: “We are delighted to be supporting TRESOC through the next stages of their Clay Park projects. Innovative projects such as this prove how much community initiatives can achieve in the energy space and the vital role projects like these play in the transition to net zero.”
The grant recognises the innovative nature of the project, which it is hoped will demonstrate an economically viable community business model for providing solar PV on housing estates that can be shared with other community energy groups, and the energy sector more widely. Part of the grant is specifically for knowledge sharing and dissemination, and TRESOC have waived any intellectual property rights. TRESOC are a member of the Devon Community Energy Network and has encouraged the establishment of a microgrids working group to facilitate this knowledge sharing. There are several local community energy groups exploring microgrids, who will be able to share the Clay Park legal and technical templates, greatly reducing their own development costs.
TRESOC are working with Buro Happold for the technical design and Ansley Foot Solicitors for legal work. Communities for Renewables and Westerly Chartered Accountants will be providing financial advice. Within the technical design Buro Happold have already identified several software gaps and are using the project to kick start innovation in these areas which will help other small scale microgrids going forward.
The capital to pay for the infrastructure, ie the microgrid, solar and EV charging system – approximately £160,000 – will be raised through a community share offer. Clay Park residents, TRESOC members and the Totnes and Dartington community will be eligible to participate. The feasibility study projected an interest rate of 3% with a payback period of 20 years. Surplus income from the project will be used to support ongoing energy advice work with residents, a Clay Park Community Fund and TRESOC’s Renewable Energy Experiential Learning (REEL) programme for local primary schools.
On site at Clay Park, the access road has gone in. However, the main construction project is delayed while THCLT await the outcome of their revised planning application. They hope to begin construction in the new year.
TRESOC is proud to have supported CISTAfrica’s Clean Cooking Kenya project by loaning them our MD Ian Bright. The project is turning an invasive plant – water hyacinth – from something choking its waterways into clean fuel; bioethanol. This reduces the use of wood and charcoal for cooking, which improves air quality and biodiversity and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Even the byproducts are beneficial – check out the video to find out more.
Ian spent the first couple of months of 2021 in Kenya consulting with the project organisers on how to make the fuel at scale. This film is one of the outcomes.
As it is Community Energy Fortnight, we are delighted to announce that residents at Transition Homes’ housing development at Clay Park in Dartington could benefit from their own supply of affordable green energy, thanks to funding awarded by the South West Energy Hub in partnership with the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership.
Working with Transition Homes Community Land Trust (THCLT), TRESOC has been awarded a Rural Community Energy Fund grant of almost £30,000. The funding will be used to carry out a feasibility study into the development of a solar photovoltaic (PV) array plus on-site battery storage and electric vehicle charging points at the 31-home Clay Park development.
If the study proves successful, a micro-grid will be set up to supply the site, taking renewable solar energy direct to residents at a below-market rate. It is estimated that the PV array could generate 180,000 kWh of energy, worth nearly £30,000 a year*, on which residents will save approximately 10%. As well as improving local energy resilience, this would save an estimated 45 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere annually.
Karl Tucker, Chair of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership said: “Our vision is to create a dynamic, highly prosperous region with high living standards and an outstanding quality of life, and clean energy is an important theme running through our activity, so I’m pleased that the South West Energy Hub has awarded this feasibility grant.
“The scheme could not only help to improve quality of life for local people on lower incomes, but also make an important contribution to tackling the climate emergency. We look forward to hearing the results of the study.”
Sally Murrall-Smith, TRESOC’s Operations Manager said, “The grant, worth £29,156, will be used to evaluate the economic viability of the scheme, design the system, determine the best technology mix, and cover organisational and legal costs, community engagement and project management.”
“We’re delighted that TRESOC has been successful with this grant bid, and we are looking forward to working with them,” added THCLT Project Coordinator Nicola Lang. “Delivering the PV array and micro-grid system will help us to reduce the environmental impact of the homes at Clay Park while making it more affordable for residents and supporting the local economy.”
THCLT has planning permission for 31 highly energy-efficient eco-homes at the progressive Clay Park development in Dartington, offering a choice of affordable rent or shared ownership for local people in housing need. It has invited TRESOC to become the energy supplier, and to own and operate the system.
TRESOC intends to raise the capital to install the solar PV panels, microgrid, and operating system, estimated to cost £180,000, through a community share-offer. Clay Park residents will be able to purchase shares in the scheme if they so wish. Interest from the income to TRESOC will be distributed to local shareholders, strengthening the local economy, while boosting employment via local procurement rules. TRESOC will also develop an ongoing renewable energy education programme in partnership with local schools and Clay Park residents.
The feasibility grant was provided by the Rural Community Energy Fund, a government scheme administered by the South West Energy Hub in partnership with Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership. Jon Rattenbury, Programme Manager for the South West Energy Hub said: “This innovative scheme is a great example of how developing local green energy can bring a wide range of economic and community benefits at the same time as helping tackle the climate emergency. We are really pleased to be able to award this grant funding to TRESOC and hope that other local communities will be inspired to follow their example.”
Part of the funding has been allocated to a community engagement programme to run alongside the study. This will comprise:
Four Walk & Talk (site visits) during the first week in September, exploring the site and giving an opportunity to ask questions in an informal manner. These will be open to general public and be timetabled at weekends and during weekdays to make it easier for people to attend. Children welcome and there will be child-friendly activities on site so parents can give their attention to the tour
Focus groups in mid-September. For people interested in living at Clay Park
An evening talk at the end of September outlining the results of the study so far. This will be open to the general public
If you are interested in attending any of the events, please register your interest by emailing admin@tresoc.co.uk.
Addendum: Sally, our Operations Manager, was interviewed about the Clay Park grant on BBC Radio Devon on 24.06.20. You can listen to the broadcast here.
Renewable energy capacity in the UK has grown in the last few years. The statistics of this show its importance in the energy mix. For example, in the first quarter of 2015 the share of electricity generation reached by renewables was 22.3%. That’s almost a quarter for that annual quarter! Or put another way, renewable energy (RE) generated 21.2 billion kWh[i] – that is equivalent to providing electricity to 21.2 million average UK households for that quarter. That is 80% of all households in the UK[ii]. Impressive! Important? Indeed! Of course, to keep it in context, most of the electricity generated by renewables feeds the national grid and is therefore not only used for households. But, as an illustration, if it was: almost all UK households would be powered by RE in Q1 of 2015! But, oh, the current government seems to think RE is not worth subsidising, that there is enough RE now – that its better to woo the Chinese to invest in nuclear and to support fracking. Nuclear, with its dubious long-term business plan (how do you plan for waste disposal costs that stretch way into the future), and fracking with its dubious short-term business case (wells don’t last very long)….
That first quarter of this year the RE generation was an increase on the same period in 2014 and this was largely due to an increase in RE capacity. Which was an increase on the year before. Imagine if we could keep that up – we’d soar past a quarter of all electricity generated being very low or no carbon! We’d power the equivalent of more than all the houses in the UK. Surely, when a new industry has risen so spectacularly to the challenge, it should be promoted and lauded? Allowed to sprint ahead? Instead its legs are being cut off at the knees. That is what the radical and sudden slashing of feed-in-tariffs (FiTs) is doing. Did you know that 148,000kW of capacity was installed under the FiT in Q1 of 2015. That brought the total up to 3.6 million kW of RE installed, thanks to the support it was getting! You could switch on about 1.5 million electric kettles all at once with a capacity like that!
In fact all RE increased – onshore wind from 6.7TWh for Q1 in 2014 to 7TWh for Q1 in 2015, offshore wind increased by 22%, hydro by 9.5% and PV by 3.6%. In Scotland the stats are really impressive: in 2014 half of all the electricity used came from renewables! In the first quarter of 2015 wind power produced the equivalent of the needs of nearly 4 million Scottish homes for that quarter[iii]. In June wind supplied a third of all Scotland’s electricity needs. This was an increase of 120% over the year before[iv]. Then, as if that wasn’t amazing enough, in July wind broke its own record supplying 36% of all electricity needs (or 72% of all Scottish homes): a whopping 660 million kWh. On eight days of that windy month 100% of Scottish homes were supplied by wind power[v]! A significant player in the energy mix? Yes!
But. I wonder if we will be able to say the same in Q1 of 2016. With the proposed almost 90% cut in FiT for solar PV and the halting of onshore wind, it is likely that very little, if any, new capacity will be added in early 2016. It’s confusing, seeing that the stats are so impressive. You’d think it would be further supported, that the politicians would blow their trumpets. They’d pat each other on the back and continue with the program that has been so successful and produced so many jobs and powered a significant portion of Britain’s electricity needs – all with near zero carbon emissions. How isn’t that a success story?
In the meantime, globally RE electricity has just become the second largest source of electricity at 22% of the total[vi]. Over the last 25 years global solar PV has averaged increase of early 45% a year, while wind increased at just over 27%. Indeed, it is a success story!
Let’s be clear. RE subsidies do need to be slowly phased out. But this should be done at a rate to allow the industry to mature, to gain grid parity and in consultation with the industry. Let’s be even more clear – its not as if fossil technologies are NOT getting subsidies and support. They are! So then these should be phased out too – maybe more rapidly seeing they are larger and been applied for longer. The International Monetary Fund states that the UK fossil fuel sector is receiving subsidies of more than £26 billion this year – that is more than 7 times that of renewable energy[vii]. Renewable Energy World published that in the OECD states there are 800 ways taxpayer money supports fossil fuel industries and at about $167 billion – far exceeds the value of subsidies for renewables. An example is that the oil industry is able to write off most drilling costs in full and immediately, rather than at normal business depreciation costs[viii]. This is NOT a level playing field! And yet RE is considered “too expensive” compared to fossil fuels….?
As the Renewable Energy Association puts it, the “bonfire of renewable policies” continues. If I was an outside bystander I’d be interested to see how the UK government is going to respond to high-level criticism of their new lack of support for this important industry, for creating investor non-confidence, for costing jobs. But none of us are bystanders. We are all affected by the UK government’s lack of vision, as the rest of the world seems to be supporting renewable energy.
Alastair Gets
Director of Engineering
[i] Electricity consumption 94.9TWh in Q1 of 2015 [gov.uk]
[ii] The average unadjusted electricity consumption per household in 2014 was 4,001 kilowatt hours (kWh), [DECC, ECUK Tables 3.07] and there are about 26.5 million households in the UK
[iii] Calculated from figures from renews (online) article 25/6/15
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