Posts by Emily Bullock

Dear DCE Members and Newsletter Subscribers

Dorset Community Energy’s 3^rd share offer closed on the 31^st 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 3^rd 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 1^st of April 2020 when interest will start to accrue on the shares.

This newsletter has been sent to DCE Members from our 1^st and 2^nd Share Offers and to subscribers to our newsletter.  It was created specifically to promote our 3^rd 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

                                  
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

                                  
Dear DCE Members and Newsletter Subscribers

Welcome to our 3^rd 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 700kW_p 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 3^rd Share Offer will be accounted for separately to those in the 1^st and 2^nd 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.

This offer will remain open until it is fully subscribed or until 31^st 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

Following our February newsletter the Dorset Community Energy (DCE) share offer is making excellent progress towards an expected launch date in June. 

If you have received this email directly you are on our mailing list and will be invited to invest as soon as all the details are available. 

If this email was forwarded to you subscribe here.

The exact details of the share offer are being finalised.   The new share offer looks to raise £445,000 to install 700kW of solar photovoltaic panels at ten schools and hospitals in addition to our current portfolio of 420kW at sixteen schools and community buildings.   This will provide an opportunity for you to invest in shares, with an expected interest rate of 5.5%, and capital repaid over 20 years, a local, ethical and carbon friendly investment.  All existing newsletter subscribers will be invited to invest, as well as those already holding shares in DCE.  One or more launch events will also be held.   

May is a busy time for DCE, we will hear about the outcome of our Low Carbon Dorset Grant application, finalise details with the sites, and draw together the share offer document. 

Many thanks to those who took part in our February survey, as a thank you DCE have made a gift to Trees for Life which will fund the planting of a tree to restore ancient woodland in Caledonian Forest in the Scottish Highlands.  The survey was completed by 36 people, who all supported the share offer, with 94% of respondents indicating they would consider investing , an average of £2,750, or £100,000 in total. 

Please do share this email with friends and family and encourage them to subscribe so they are also invited to invest.  We want to be in a position to install on all the identified sites, and we already have interest from other unconfirmed sites. .  

Make sure you don’t miss out subscribe here

Read more on our website.

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

In this issue:

• Dorset Community Energy solar generation in 2018
• New solar installations in 2019 – get ready to support our share offer – please help us gauge local interest by completing this short survey  by 10th March – once we have thirty responses we will make a donation to Trees for Life, who plant trees in the Scottish Highlands.
• Microgrids and Passiv House development in Bridport
• Last chance for Feed-in-Tariff 31^st March 2019
• 2019 AGM

best wishes from Dorset Community Energy Directors: Tim, Pete, Henry, Tom, Derek and Emily

Dorset Community Energy solar generation in 2018

Last year, 2018, was the second sunniest UK year on record according to the Met Office, with 1,575 hours of sunshine landing on our solar panels.  We generated 445,876 kWh of electricity, more than 10% above that predicted in our share offer documents.  Dorset Community Energy (DCE) members benefitted from an interest payment of 5.5% in September.

Read more

More solar installations on schools expected in 2019, your chance to support!

Help us gauge local interest by completing a short survey, read the article and find the link below or do it now!  Please complete by 10th March – once we have thirty responses we will make a donation to Trees for Life, who plant trees in the Scottish Highlands.  

If you were at our AGM, you will have heard that we won a grant application to the Rural Community Energy Fund to meet the costs of technical and feasibility studies for a new round of solar photovoltaic panel installations on schools.

The feasibility studies are now almost completed. Six schools and five hospital sites have expressed interest and have been assessed as feasible using a similar financial model to our existing installations, and we expect to issue a share offer soon.  

Read more

Microgrids and Passiv House development in Bridport

Dorset Community Energy (DCE) also secured funding from the Rural Community Energy Fund to carry out a feasibility study to supply solar photovoltaic electricity to 53 new homes being developed by Bridport Co-Housing and designed to Passiv House specifications.

DCE appointed consultants Wessex Energy Solutions (WES) to conduct the study, which has shown that using a standard model of installing panels onto homes and selling electricity to the householders would not be financially viable, however installing an array of panels whose electricity is shared across the houses, by a micro-grid, backed up with a storage battery is financially viable.  

Read more

Last chance to benefit from Feed-In Tarrif

If you are considering installing solar photovoltaic panels, or any other renewable electricity technology on your home then you need to act quickly as the Feed-in Tariff will close to new installations on 31st March 2019.

Read more

Dorset Community Energy – AGM – July 2019

We are intending to hold our AGM in July 2019, date and venue to be confirmed..