Posts by Emily Bullock

Welcome to our October 2019 Newsletter

Posted on by Emily Bullock

Welcome to our newsletter, especially if you are one of the 50 new subscribers since our last May newsletter.

We have been busy with our most recent share offer, so thank you if you invested, you can get an update below, and also read about:

  • Community Engagement vacancy for Bridport / Salway Ash Energy Local project
  • Bridport / Salway Ash Energy Local project – connecting local renewable energy producers with consumers 
  • 3rd Share Offer update
  • Climate change presentation at Atlantic Academy Portland 
  • Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) to launch as replacement to Feed-In-Tariff

best wishes from DCE Directors: Derek, Emily, Henry, Pete,Tim, and Tom

Community Engagement vacancy for Bridport / Salway Ash Energy Local project 

Dorset Community Energy (DCE) is excited to have been awarded funding for an Energy Local project which aims to link local providers of renewable electricity with customers, at a reasonable price for both.  We will be recruiting a Community Engagement Coordinator for 10 days of paid work at £20 per hour.

Read more

Bridport / Salway Ash Energy Local project – connecting local renewable energy producers with consumers

If you live in Salway Ash or near a solar farm or wind turbine you may have wondered  whether you could buy the electricity generated and use it in your house.  Currently this isn’t possible with generators forced to sell to the grid for around 5p per unit, and customers to buy from the grid for around 15p per unit.  

Dorset Community Energy is excited to have been awarded a £10,000 development grant from the Power to Change Bright Ideas Fund to pilot a new business model which will enable the supply of local renewable electricity to householders through the existing grid at a mid-price benefitting both householder and owners of local renewable energy plant.

Read more

3rd Share Offer update

A special welcome and thank you to readers who have invested in our 3rd Share Offer.  We are delighted to have reached our target of £445,000 enabling installation of an additional 700kW of solar photovoltaic panels.  The first installation will be 100kW at the Wey Valley Academy. Work will be commenced during the Autumn half-term and completed during Spring half-term. We are also aiming to install a further 3 sites in 2019.

Read more

Climate change presentation at Atlantic Academy Portland

DCE director and secretary Pete West was invited to give a presentation on climate change to 100 Year 7 pupils at the Atlantic Academy Portland, Pete talked about personal actions and solutions to the climate crisis and the importance of improved government policies.  

Read more

Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) to launch as replacement to Feed-In-Tariff

Government to launch Smart Export Guarantee in January 2020 in place of revoked Feed-In-Tariff.

Read more

Dorset Community Energy seeks Community Engagement Co-ordinator for Energy Local project

Posted on by Emily Bullock

Dorset Community Energy (DCE) is excited to have been awarded funding for an Energy Local project which aims to link local providers of renewable electricity with customers, at a reasonable price for both, read more here.

Pete West, DCE secretary and director will be managing the Salway Ash/ Bridport local electricity supply pilot project on a voluntary basis.  DCE wish to recruit a Community Engagement Co-ordinator for approximately 10 days of paid work at £20 per hour on a self-employed basis.

The purpose of the role will be to promote the project to householders in the Salway Ash area using marketing materials supplied by Energy Local (which may need to be adapted). If you are interested checik out the Energy Local website for background information.

Essential requirements for the role include experience of community engagement/ marketing or communications and computer literacy (PowerPoint, Word, data management etc). A desirable requirement is an interest in environmental issues/ renewable energy/ the local economy.

In addition the appointee will need to be available for a training day in Bridport with Energy Local from 10:00am- 4:00pm on Wednesday 6th November.

Promotional activities are planned to start in Salway Ash in January and a community engagement plan and promotion materials will need to be developed in Nov / Dec / early January.

Anyone interested in the vacancy should e-mail a CV and covering letter to Pete West pete@dorsetcommunityenergy.org.uk  or phone Pete on 07532 339582 if you would like further information. As this is a relatively small contract applications will be considered as received on a rolling basis.

More about the Salway Ash / Bridport Energy Local project

Dorset Community Energy to start innovative pilot project in January

Posted on by Emily Bullock

People who live in Salway Ash may have wondered if they could buy the electricity generated by the solar panels on the roof of the village hall, or the nearby wind turbine.

Currently any unused electricity from the wind turbine or solar panels is sold by the owners to the national grid for approximately 5p/kWh, whereby the grid sells it back to customers for around 15p/kWh. 

Dorset Community Energy is excited to have been awarded a £10,000 development grant from the Power to Change Bright Ideas Fund to pilot a new business model which will enable the supply of local renewable electricity to householders through the existing grid at a mid-price benefitting both householder and owners of local renewable energy plant.  We will be working closely with award-winning consultants Energy Local, who will provide training and set up the metering and billing arrangements between those generating renewable energy and local households who wish to purchase the electricity.   Energy Local will set up the contractual arrangements with a licenced electricity supplier (e.g. Octopus Energy) to ensure households have electricity whether or not the solar panels / wind turbine are generating. 

The video illustrates one such scheme  already operating in Bethesda, N. Wales, which supplies electricity from a 100kW hydro generator to local households at approx. 9p/kWh, so both householders and the generator benefit and money is retained in the local economy.

The DCE project will be developed in 2 stages:

1)  Local renewable electricity supply to householders in the Salway Ash area from the existing 50kW wind turbine owned by local farmer Peter Bailey together with export from the 16kW DCE solar PV installation on Salway Ash village hall.

2) Researching the options for Dorset Community Energy to develop, finance and operate a new ground mounted solar array of approximately 200kW (requiring 2000 m2 of land or half an acre) close to Bridport and directly supplying households in Bridport through the same business model as developed in Salway Ash.

DCE are recruiting for a Community Engagement co-ordinator for this role. Read more

Dorset Community Energy 3rd Share Offer update

Posted on by Emily Bullock

Following our successful share offer, the work to implement DCE’s 3rd 700kWp PV portfolio continues. The first installation with be 100kW at the Wey Valley Academy. Work will be commenced during the Autumn half-term and completed during Spring half-term. We are also aiming to install a further 3 sites in 2019.

The remaining sites will be installed next year and we are still expecting completion by the end of March 2020. Some sites have not yet signed the Heads of Terms, once these are signed outstanding shares will be issued. One site has decided not to progress the installation but we are in discussions with several alternative sites. If you invested in the 3rd share offer and have not yet received your share certificate, we will be corresponding with you later in October to provide a more detailed update. Do contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

More information about our 3rd Share Offer

Climate change presentation at Atlantic Academy Portland- Sept 2019

Posted on by Emily Bullock

In early September, Pete West, secretary and a director of Dorset Community Energy, was invited to give a climate change presentation to 100 year 7 pupils at the Atlantic Academy, Portland. John Tomblin, an active member of Transition Town Weymouth and Portland, introduced the session with a presentation on climate science, which Pete followed up with a presentation on solutions, including personal actions and the need for much better government policies. It was very encouraging to learn that the 18-hour ‘Caring for the Environment’ module covering science, geography and English was being offered over a period of 6 weeks, starting in the first week of secondary education for these pupils.

Read similar stories on our education page

Smart Export Guarantee to replace Feed-in-Tariff

Posted on by Emily Bullock

Since the Feed-In-Tariffs for renewable electricity ended in March 2019, anyone planning to install renewable electricity who did not use all the electricity onsite would have been forced to export the electricity to the grid free of charge effectively subsidising the big power companies. 

Fortunately in January the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) will be launched.  This will require energy suppliers with more than 150,000 customers to offer a price for any exported electricity.  Octopus Energy have already offered 5.56p/kWh, this means that new installations will be able to benefit in a similar way to the Feed-in-Tariff.

This covers installations generating  up to 5MW and includes solar photovoltaic, hydro, micro CHP, on-shore wind and anaerobic digestion. 

Read more

Dorset Community Energy 3rd Share Offer now closed

Posted on by Emily Bullock

Dear DCE Members and Newsletter Subscribers

Dorset Community Energy’s 3rd share offer closed on the 31st July 2019 having met its target of £445,000 within the offer period.

At the six-week mark of the share offer, we had raised £250k but the remaining £200k surged in in the last two-weeks. In fact, we were oversubscribed.

Many thanks to all those who choose to invest in the share offer and apologies to those who got there too late. With a 40% grant support from the Low Carbon Dorset Fund the share offer will allow us to install 700kW of solar panels on schools and hospitals.

There is a possibility the share offer may re-open later in 2019 or early 2020, but this would be dependent on identifying new sites and a further successful grant application.

Unless you have already done so, all investors in the share offer will receive further information from us within the next week.  If you have any questions with regards to your application, then don’t hesitate to contact us at info@dorsetcommunityenergy.org.uk

The work on implementing the 3rd share offer installations is underway with the first step being the signing of fully binding legal agreements with each site. So far Wey Valley School have signed and we are now working with Dorset Healthcare to finalise their four sites as well as Blandford School. We aim to have all the installations operational by the 1st of April 2020 when interest will start to accrue on the shares.

This newsletter has been sent to DCE Members from our 1st and 2nd Share Offers and to subscribers to our newsletter.  It was created specifically to promote our 3rd Share Offer and will now be deleted.  To ensure that you stay on our mailing list for ongoing newsletters and any re-opening of this Share Offer or subsequent Share Offers, ensure that you are subscribed to our mailing list at the following link.  Subscribe to DCE newsletter here.

Sincere thanks for your interest in supporting Dorset Community Energy.

DCE Directors: 

Tim, Pete, Henry, Derek, Tom, Emily

Dorset Community Energy 3rd Share Offer – NOW CLOSED

Posted on by Emily Bullock

The Dorset Community 3rd share offer is now closed to new applicants as we have reached the target £445,000. If you have applied for shares we will be in touch soon.

If you wished to purchase shares in this share offer but have been unable to do so please e mail info@dorsetcommunityenergy.org.uk and we will add your contact details to a priority list for notification of future share offers. There is a possibility the share offer may re-open later in 2019 or early 2020, but this is dependent on identifying new sites and a further successful grant application

Read more about our share offer here.

Dorset Community Energy 3rd Share Offer update

Posted on by Emily Bullock

                                  
Dear DCE Members and Newsletter Subscribers

We are delighted to say the share offer is progressing very well and in just six weeks we have raised £248,850, or more than half our target of £445,000.

We have now issued the first £221,426 of shares on a first come first served basis. This is the sum required to implement 336kW of solar panels at the first six sites which already have signed Heads of Terms.  Share certificates will be sent to DCE Members by post in August.

We are liaising with the remaining sites to finalise terms, in the unlikely event that some decide not to go ahead, we are also working with a reserve list of interested sites. 

There is still time to invest, or to encourage your friends and family to do so.  The share offer is open until 31st July, after which the Directors will decide whether to keep the offer open or pause it.

We will send an update at the start of August once we have reached the end of the initial offer period.

Thanks to everybody who has invested to-date and helped get us off to this great start and welcome to the new members of DCE.

If you have any queries don’t hesitate to contact us directly on info@dorsetcommunityenergy.org.uk

Please help us to publicise this offer by forwarding this email widely.   If you received this email via forward and would like to subscribe for updates – subscribe here.

Best regards

DCE Directors: 

Tim, Pete, Henry, Derek, Tom, Emily

Dorset Community Energy 3rd Share Offer

Posted on by Emily Bullock

                                  
Dear DCE Members and Newsletter Subscribers

Welcome to our 3rd Share Offer which is launched by this email, so you are the first to hear of it!

You are invited to invest in Dorset Community Energy , we hope to raise £445,000 to install 700kWp of rooftop solar panels on 10 schools and hospitals in Dorset.  The schools and hospitals will benefit from reduced price electricity, and reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

This offers you a low-risk, ethical, local investment opportunity that supports the community and helps to fight climate change.

You can invest between £100 and £50,000, and can expect to receive a target interest rate of 5.5% per annum once the panels are installed; and your capital returned in 17 instalments over 20 years.   New Members will benefit in the same way as existing Members, however the new sites in the 3rd Share Offer will be accounted for separately to those in the 1st and 2nd Share Offers.

Full details are on our website, where we also have an explanatory video.

We are also hosting four events, where we will explain the offer, and answer questions.  Each will be between 7:30 and 8:30pm, light refreshments will be available.

 Bridport 25th June Bridport Literary and Scientific Institute DT6 3JX
 Poole 27th June The Spire (Methodist Church) BH15 1DF
 Blandford 1st July The Blandford School (access via shared Milldown Primary entrance) DT11 7SQ
 Shaftesbury 8th July Shaftesbury Town Hall SP7 8LY


This offer will remain open until it is fully subscribed or until 31st July, whichever is sooner.  We will send two or three further emails to you to update you on progress and let you know when the offer is closed.

This email has been sent to all our existing Members and to subscribers of our newsletter.  We have created a separate mailing list for this purpose and will delete it once the share offer closes.  Newsletter subscribers will remain on our quarterly mailing list and Members will continue to receive communications from us regarding their investment. 

We hope that you will take this opportunity to invest in Dorset Community Energy 

Please help us to publicise this offer by forwarding this email widely.   If you received this email via forward and would like to subscribe for updates – subscribe here.

Best regards

DCE Directors: 

Tim, Pete, Henry, Derek, Tom, Emily