Post on 29-Mar-2016
description
A village in Leicestershire has shown
how with good planning and committed
individuals, ambitious community
projects are achievable. In just over a
year, it has managed to deliver
renewable energy projects with Big
Lottery Fund support that will also
provide sustainable future funding
for the community.
C A S E S T U D Y : C O M M U N I T Y A C T I O N
A community takes action on renewable energy
North Kilworth, in Leicestershire, is experiencing changes
that are common across England’s villages – it has lost
three farms and the local shop, plus one of its two pubs has
recently been sold for conversion to residential properties,
while employment for the vast majority of residents
requires commuting to larger towns and cities.
However, village residents are responding to these
challenges proactively. They have set up a Community
Interest Company – Village Power CIC – that is dedicated
to improving the village, ensuring it has access to renewable
energy and establishing future funding streams that will
provide a sustainable local economy for the village.
An early success has been the securing of £60,000 of Big
Lottery Fund support in 2011. This funding came as a result
of public votes for the project in the Jubilee People’s
Millions competition – a joint Big Lottery and ITV initiative
– and shows how Village Power CIC has galvanized the
support of the whole community and others in the region.
Solar statistics
The 57 solar panels that have been installed on the roofs
of community buildings in North Kilworth are expected
to deliver the following yields and cost benefits:
These are naturally estimates given the variability of solar
radiation from year to year and location to location. The
calculations also assume 50% of the energy generated is
used within the building and the rest is exported to the
national grid.
Building No of
panels Predicted
yield kWh Annual
total
benefit School 18 3,087 £1, 539 Village hall 9 1,378 £686
Sports club 30 5,103 £2,263
“Village Power CIC is an example of a community
coming together and we hope it may inspire
others to do the same. It can be time consuming
and challenging, but the rewards are fantastic."
Stuart Dainton, Director
C A S E S T U D Y : C O M M U N I T Y A C T I O N
The funding has allowed Village Power CIC to install solar
panels on three community buildings in the village in
order to reduce carbon emissions. It has also funded
the planting of 500 trees – including oaks, beeches and
a wide range of fruiting species – on village green spaces
to help remove carbon from the atmosphere.
The solar panels were installed by Sun Switch, part of
National Energy Services, in the winter of 2011 – in time
to benefit from Government’s ‘feed-in’ tariffs (tariffs were
set to start reducing for new systems installed after April
2012 by about eight per cent a year). They now sit on the
school roof, village hall and sports club, with all the energy
generated being sold to the Good Energy company –
Britain’s only 100 per cent renewable energy supplier.
Village Power CIC is monitoring the impact of the panels
in terms of how much carbon is being saved and how much
money is being generated for the village and the school
children can easily access this information via a display
screen in the school.
The project’s impact can be seen in another way too –
approximately 20 other properties in the village have
now installed solar panels on their roofs. The community
has also shown its support by attending community tree
planting events in November 2011 and early 2012, with
groups of all ages helping plant trees.
This small village in the heart of England is demonstrating
how with clear ideas and a few committed individuals,
funding can be accessed to bring significant changes to
a community. It definitely takes a motivated local team and
a realistic assessment of time required, but projects like
this help unlock the passion within a community to bring a
multitude of benefits to all residents.
Visit: http://villagepowercic.co.uk
Community Interest Company
North Kilworth has a strong history of community activities
and there are many residents with the experience and
enthusiasm to maintain and improve the quality of rural
living across the whole community. But the community
recognized that grant funding would be essential in order to
achieve their ambitious aims and having a structure would
help enormously when it came to approaching funders and
dealing with grants.
Having investigated various options they decided to form a
Community Interest Company (CIC) – a limited company
created for those who want to conduct a business or other
activity for community benefit, and not purely for private
advantage. It has the flexibility of the familiar company form,
is relatively simple to register and set up and allows access
to a range of financing options.
Village Power CIC will reinvest all profits for the benefit of
the community and, by investing in projects that will provide
a future income, they will ensure its long term sustainability.
It provides a different model for a local community – one
which focuses on renewable energy solutions and the
promotion of a resource efficient culture, with the long
term aim of achieving enhanced local services and new
opportunities for the local residents.
For more on CICs visit: www.businesslink.gov.uk