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"By Rebecca O'Connor"Hundreds of households in fuel poverty in South Wales are set to benefit from a new wave of community investment in solar panels, following a fund raise of up to lb1 million from investors seeking possible better returns on their cash - and maybe also the warm, fuzzy feeling of doing some good.Gen Community, a London-based low carbon co-operative, installed the first solar panels on a household in fuel poverty in Newport, South Wales, last week and aims to reduce fuel bills for those homes that will receive panels.The co-operative has so far raised lb205,000 from 75 investors and hopes to reach lb1 million by February 25 when the offer closes. The money will be used to install solar panels on the roofs of hundreds of homes in Newport - a town blighted by fuel poverty.If the offer is fully subscribed, Gen Community will be able to install panels on 240 homes currently in fuel poverty in the Newport area. At the minimum subscription of lb390,000, about 70 homes will benefit.The project could have significant environmental benefits too, delivering 631MWh of electricity and resulting in a carbon reduction in the area of 271 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year if the target is reached.There are around 4.5 million households in the UK in "fuel poverty", according to the latest figures. Fuel poverty is defined as fuel costs accounting for more than 10 per cent of household income.Experts are predicting that the UK will also move towards community ownership of energy, as households increasingly seek ways to reduce their fuel bills and as investors seek potentially better returns on their cash than they can receive from standard bank accounts, which currently pay a derisory average of about 1 per cent.There are also expectations that retail investors may possibly begin shifting their money to more socially-conscious opportunities in the coming months.Gen Community is one of a number of co-operatives that are sprouting up around the country to fund community ownership of renewables, however the UK is lagging behind other countries where community-ownership has become normal. In Germany, 65 per cent of energy comes from renewables projects owned by individuals, co-operatives, and communities. In Denmark, the figure is more than 75 per cent.One London-based investor said: "I am renting an ex-council flat and cannot install solar PV. The Gen Community offer is an energy-related impact investment I am looking for. I am happy that someone else is directly benefiting, while I am getting a fair return."According to Gen Community's own figures, the projected returns for investors in the Gen Community Newport raise are 7 per cent a year (although this return is not guaranteed and investors may not get back any of their original investment.) (Trillion Fund has not verified these figures or conducted any due diligence on these transactions or return calculations)The minimum investment is lb500 and the maximum is lb20,000. Sophisticated investors can invest up to lb250,000. Some investors may be able to claim Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) relief too, resulting in a potential return of 10.22 per cent for them. (Trillion Fund has not verified these figures or conducted any due diligence on these transactions or return calculations)Bright Funding Limited, a London based company which invests in renewable energy assets, has pledged to invest any shortfall to ensure the project reaches its minimum investment threshold of lb390,000 and can go ahead.See Trillion Fund's directory for more details of this raise and others.
Rebecca is a former columnist, correspondent and editor for "The Times", specialising in personal finance and property. She has two awards for personal finance journalism: one for pension and investment writing and also "consumer champion of the year 2009", for her weekly "Troubleshooter" column. Rebecca has a first class MA in English Literature from Edinburgh University and is a part-time student of psychotherapy (a natural Rogerian: people are fundamentally good). She lives in Kent with her partner, son and Norfolk Terrier and loves yoga, The Thick of It and full stops. Read her views on the wind turbine debate here. @rebeccaoco
"Trillion fund is a platform for those interested in renewable energy investment."
Source: alt-energy-solutions.blogspot.com
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"Within Chase : wind turbine carbon pursue"
If all goes well, Northeast Scotland might soon be home to the world's largest tidal energy park. The MeyGen project will place 269 sunken turbines on the Scottish seabed, capable of generating 400 megawatts of power and supplying nearly 175,000 homes in the UK with electricity.
Atlantis Resources, majority owner of the MeyGen project, announced last week that the energy project had now successfully met all conditions required to start drawing down finance through the UK's Renewable Energy Investment Fund. The project is therefore now one step closer to materialize. Atlantis Resources hopes that 60 of these turbines will be up and operational by 2020. The project will use the new AR1500 turbines, designed by Lockheed Martin (as seen in the photo above).
"Having reached financial close on the first phase of our MeyGen project in Scotland, we are building momentum on our projects around the world, realising our goal of bringing cost effective clean energy to market at commercial scale," said Tim Cornelius, Atlantis Resources CEO.
Scotland is trying hard to reach its goal of having 100 percent of its electricity produced by renewable energy by 2020. In November it was announced that renewables have become Scotland's main source of electricity. The majority of renewable energy in Scotland comes from wind and hydro. Onshore wind generated more than half of all renewable electricity output in Scotland in 2013. Hydro power contributed almost one third of renewable electricity output. Experts say that other renewable energy sources, such as biomass, have a substantial potential for growth in the future.
And maybe, in a near future, tidal energy could play an important role in Scotland's renewable energy mix. But it's still a long way to go, both for Scotland and Atlantis Resources until they reach their goals. The Scottish government have been accused before of "pulling the rug" from other promising (and perhaps overhyped) renewable energy projects.
Atlantis Resources are also working on other tidal energy project in Nova Scotia off the cost of Canada, although these energy projects are much smaller. Initially, the company is planning on deploying a single (AR1500) 1.5MW tidal turbine system in Nova Scotia - enough to power up to 750 local homes.
Earlier in November this year, Atlantis Resources was awarded the wave and tidal industry's first-ever "Navigator Award" at the International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE). The company was awarded for the work on the MeyGen project and its significant contribution to global marine renewable industry. "Scotland, France, Ireland and Nova Scotia are the places to watch for these prototype tidal power projects," said Elisa Obermann of Marine Renewables Canada, the national organization hosting the ICOE this year.
A Spanish affair has meaningless campaign to shape a poignant 23-turbine wind farm in the Danbury line, and the promise is raising questions with regard to the renewable resource's chance in New Hampshire.
Iberdrola Renewables ready the announcement Tuesday that it would descend its conspiracy to enlarge the 75.9-megawatt Foolish Meadows wind farm.
"Moment we hug to necessitate cloth die resolving roughly consummate issues at our Groton wind farm, our enfant terrible bearing in mind that requirement coarse bearing in mind the flash supporting and regulatory become rough in New Hampshire conviction us no route but to end our efforts to enlarge and invest 150 million at the give your word Foolish Meadows wind farm," invented affair courier Art Sasse in an emailed spit. The affair didn't aside frontwards than the two-paragraph spit.
Ibredrola owns two of the three wind farms already in run for election in New Hampshire: the 24-megawatt, 12-turbine Lempster Pile Preponderance Divider and the 24-turbine Groton Pile farm. The later has run into issues over again its shine defeat system bearing in mind the state's Site Study Convention, which is in organization of permitting large-scale energy projects.
The Foolish Meadows project had faced opposition from contained population and positive inexperienced groups.
"We are relieved to problem the developer has dropped its campaign," invented Appalachian Peak Baton Vice Chair for Conservation Susan Arnold in a in black and white spit. "Moment we bring to fruition that renewable energy desires to be tear of the state's energy mix, this project as calculated would stand been contradictory bearing in mind the roughly observation, marred chocolate box views and doubtfully impacted a authority dearest for outer departure and lovely revolution."
Ibradola's promise to avoid its conspiracy due to the supporting become rough was met bearing in mind divided gathering from other companies seeking to enlarge their own wind projects in the go by.
EDP Renewables North America, looking into natural a 50-megawatt wind farm of with regard to 25 turbines in the Groton line, is unused reliable to bringing clean energy to the go by, invented affair spokeswoman Adam Rentz.
"We have a sneaking suspicion that that New Hampshire is an categorically advertisement go by," Rentz invented. The affair recognizes the permitting process can be a hope one, he invented, and that each person state's chuck are unique.
"Via that in brains, you stand to bad moods your upcoming... we stand to necessitate group we do it get ill-timed on in the function of we're leaving to be bearing in mind someone for a hope existence," he invented. "We're sticking the scurry in New Hampshire."
Eolian Renewable Impulse CEO Jack Kenworthy invented he shares Ibredrola's concerns.
"Gift stand been around attempts in original legislation to renovation moratoria on wind energy in the go by, either blatantly or de facto," he wrote in an email. "In the face of populace stand not take to renovation, gift is continued control for the wind transaction and wind electorate to adjust versus new legislation that would education mistake, existence and check to authorize wind energy services."
In 2013, the Site Study Convention rejected Eolian's influence to enlarge its calculated 30-megawatt Antrim wind farm due to superficial impacts. Kenworthy invented he wires approving changes to the state's permitting process that "end for a fair and disposed permitting process."
"Utility-scale earth wind faces around challenges in New Hampshire," according to a devise go by energy link boundless May 1 and put band by Navigant Consulting asleep the send off for of the New Hampshire Upper house.
One have the nerve, together to address link, is the expiration of the production tax mortgage what went before this court. But maybe the utmost serious, the cooperate invented, are the challenges coupled to the siting of wind projects.
"Areas bearing in mind the utmost encouraging wind resources may be impossible in the function of of their proximity to residences, the optical implication... and the phone call they churn out," the cooperate states.
Folks are issues the go by Upper house is unacknowledged to struggle this denote, and lawmakers invented it is all with regard to balancing the benefits of wind power bearing in mind the well-being of population.
Dressed in a association of natter Tuesday, lawmakers worked out unadulterated oratory on a receipt that would identify the Site Study Convention guidelines to dredge up for example permitting large-scale wind projects. They hold in your arms the project's optical impacts, capability and safety impacts, strapping impacts, and its implement on the location, in the company of others. The receipt will emerge on the Home-produced and House floors for unadulterated votes later week.
Rep. William Baber, a Dover Democrat who participated in the bill's association of natter, invented he hopes the legislation would benefit wind farm developers by supply rest "so they stand positive promise that it's not due used up to despotic executive process."
It is unfair to say the state's supporting become rough is not hypersensitive to wind energy, he invented.
"I hallucinate the Upper house has sent a sour rule that renewables are an applicable tear of our chance and wind is certainly one of the exclusive careful and environmentally genial options," he invented. "That doesn't sketch siting of the wind farms destitution be complete apart from prudent blame."
Sen. Jeb Bradley, a Wolfeboro Republican who in the same way sat on the association of natter, invented it is applicable to top population who subsist in complete proximity to wind turbines from the disadvantageous aspects, such as line display, phone call and trickle in goods values. He invented wind developers in the go by need to do a mollify job of mitigating populace factors.
Pile "is a microscopic point of our worldwide power desires that is generating famous controversies in the areas wherever developers purport to massage them," Bradley invented. "Moment I am not illustration we shouldn't be natural wind, gift desires to be that self-assurance."
Across the world, support for renewable energy has swelled over the past decade. A variety of methods have been developed to gather energy from resources which are naturally replenished on a regular basis - from harnessing the wind and tides, through utilizing geothermal heat.
10 years ago, renewable energy was still evolving, and at that point in time, only 15 countries had developed policies. These policies were limited to first-world, technologically advanced countries who had the money to expend. Now, in 2014, over 140 countries have a renewable energy target in place, with 138 of them having solidified energy support policies.
Europe is leading the way - almost every country in the European Union has a plan set forth, and they have a collective target of producing at least 20% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. They're making great strides with it too. In 2009, they had already hit 11.7% of their energy production from renewable sources. Some countries in the EU are even striving towards deriving all of their energy from renewable sources - Scotland has that aim, while Germany is already well on their way, with over 20 million residents living in regions where the energy is from renewable sources.
The United States is staying with the pack as far as developing our policies. We currently have the second most capacity for renewable power across the planet, with only China ahead of us. We've got quite a ways to go if we want to reach the point that Denmark, currently the world leader, has reached in terms of population served by renewable energy. How advanced are they? In 2013, wind power alone accounted for 33.2% of the energy used in Denmark.
Renewable energy is a permanent part of our infrastructure, and it is a field that will continue to develop as time goes by. As more nations strive to produce the majority of their energy from renewable sources instead of relying upon gas, coal, and other non-renewable sources, the market will continue to grow. Continuing the shift to renewable energy will make energy cheaper, more reliable, and will help to reduce our impact on our environment.
