Author: Webmistress-DJW24

Spot a clip of our own turbine going up in this great little film from the Welsh Government Energy Service – we’re proud to be part of their efforts.

Team Wales – Achieving net zero through collaboration #WalesClimateWeek pic.twitter.com/PdgYIoJbuj

— @_energyservice (@_energyservice) November 6, 2020

https://twitter.com/_energyservice/status/1324659812739780614

Last week’s Wales Climate Week marked the date that COP26 would have been starting, hosted by the UK, had it not been postponed due to the pandemic. It also kicked off the countdown to the rescheduled COP26 (the United Nations Climate Change Conference) which will be in Glasgow in a year’s time.

The Welsh Government Energy Service provides free technical, commercial and procurement support to develop energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, including interest free loans and grants and help with financial planning. As you can see from the film, they’ve been busy but appreciate there’s still a lot of work to do.

If you are inspired by community renewable energy please do consider buying shares in our turbine when our next share offer launches next spring. You can register your interest by signing up to our newsletter in the box to the right, and we will let you know when the time comes.

We are pleased to have been able to donate £2000 to Victoria Hall in Lampeter, to help support this vital local community centre.

Victoria Hall is an important hub and resource for the community, and is feeling the financial impact of the Covid-19 lockdown as groups and events have all been cancelled or postponed. We are glad to be in a position to help them with their overheads at this time – this is exactly the sort of local resilience and assistance that we had hoped our turbine’s community fund would be able to provide.

Keep an eye on Victoria Hall’s website or Facebook page for details on reopening.

There’s news here on our next share offer, if you’d like to become an investor and have a say in the distribution of the community fund in future.

We’re excited to announce that since the turbine was commissioned in October 2019 it has generated just over 1,000,000 kWh. February and March were particularly good months due to storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge with the turbine producing over 440,000 kWh in a two-month period. Generation in April and May has been lower than forecast due to the extended period of low winds and sunny conditions.

You can read more about the record-breaking period for Bristol Energy here, who we currently sell our electricity to. https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/storms-sent-bristol-energys-renewable-generation-soaring-in-february

We at Grannell have not been immune to the worldwide disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic. We had been intending to launch our second share offer in May, with new opportunities for investors to become co-owners of our wind turbine, but delayed the launch due to the pandemic.

We are busy making plans behind the scenes and will be making an announcement very soon about this next opportunity for investment, so if you haven’t already please do sign up to our newsletter to be kept informed.

Thankfully the turbine itself, constructed in October last year, has been turning throughout this period of disruption, and we are excited to have recently passed the million-kilowatt-hour mark!

Our community wind turbine has now been commissioned and is generating power.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us on this journey – from our investors, to the great teams who worked on the construction, and the many local people and members who came along to watch the turbine go up.

Erecting the turbine at Ffrwd Farm was a grand engineering feat, taking five days at the start of October during some typically Welsh challenging autumnal weather. It was commissioned on  11^th October well before the Feed-in Tariff deadline of 31^st December 2019 – meaning this is one of the last community wind projects in the UK to benefit from the government subsidy.

You can see pictures of the complete construction process in our image gallery.

There was also plenty of work to do in the preceding weeks to get the site ready for the installation. Foundations were laid and the concrete base poured. Scottish company Green Cat was responsible for construction.

The turbine’s very large and heavy components travelled here from Holland (where it was previously generating power on a wind farm  which has since been re-energised with larger turbines) on  four separate ferries, arriving at Harwich & Purfleet.  Seven HGV journeys brought them by road to Ffrwd Farm, travelling for the last leg along a farm track which had to be widened, strengthened and extended by 2 km – a big job, carried out brilliantly by local company D.G.Jones and Sons.

Once on site, the components were put together by a team of Dutch engineers from F&B Windpower as the expertise to do this sadly does not exist in the UK. The cranes to manoeuvre the different pieces in position were provided by Welsh firm Davies Crane Hire based in Carmarthen.

On October 5th, the turbine blades were lowered into place in readiness for the big Switch On, an exciting day for everyone, especially those who had been involved from the very beginning. Many people came to view the final stages of the construction including shareholders and the local community.

Since then, there have been a few teething problems which meant we had to take the turbine offline for a short time to sort them out. These were anticipated and are typical of projects like this; everything is now running as it should be.

Thanks are also due to several others: Energy Saving Trust helped source grant and loan funding, while Sharenergy helped us with guidance and the share offer. Second Wind Energy sourced the turbine and oversaw it’s dismantling and storage; they will continue to support us with Operations and Maintenance. Eddie from Bosman Inspecties connected the turbine up following the lift and fixed the teething problems. Green Cat Renewables stepped in as Project Managers, and WindCare were our Balance of Plant contractors.

• Our turbine is a refurbished Enercon E48 from Holland.
• It stands on a 50m tower with a 48-metre blade span.
• It is the largest community-owned wind turbine in Ceredigion.
• It stands on top of a windy hill at Ffrwd Farm, Llanwnnen in Ceredigion.
• It has a capacity of 800kW, but will operate at a capacity of 500kW  in order to comply with the grid and Feed in Tariff requirements.
• Estimated annual generation is 1,743,000 kWh of electricity – enough to supply the equivalent of around 450 typical homes, or half of Llanfihangel Ystrad.
• It will save over 600 tonnes CO2 per year, so our community is contributing to the UK’s net zero future.
• It connects to the grid via an on-site substation and underground cable at 11,000 volts.
• The turbine weighs  approx. 100 tonnes.
• 400 tonnes of concrete & steel were used to make the base.
• The components were brought to site from Holland on three ferries and seven HGVs.
• It took five days to erect the turbine after the site had been prepared.
• The expected life of the turbine is 20 years.
• It is one of the last wind turbines in the UK to receive support from the government’s Feed-in Tariff scheme.
• It is co-owned by the 129 investors in Grannell Community Energy.
• The community benefit fund will distribute at least £5,000 a year to support local good causes.
• The electricity is being sold to Bristol Energy through a Power Purchase Agreement.

There are only a few days left to invest in one of the last community-led wind turbine projects in Wales and the largest in Ceredigion.

Those living in Ceredigion can join for as little as £100 a share, and those from outside the area join for £250 a share. Invest anything from £100 – £100,000 and see a return of approx 5% whilst helping to fight climate change and have a say in how Grannell Community Energy work.

The turbine will generate approx 1700 MWh of electricity a year – enough for about 450 homes – and save 613 tonnes of CO2.

Your membership will make a difference to our community, too, as we hope to make available a sum of at least £5,000 per year over 20 years (subject to turbine performance) to put into a community fund for Llanwnnen, Llanfihangel Ystrad, and Lampeter. The board will invite suggestions from the local communities for how this fund should be allocated and spent.

https://grannellcoop.org.uk/share-offer/embed/#?secret=qYHuZpPC1U

If you are not in a position to join, please consider helping us by telling friends and family about us and sharing our posts on social media – you’ll find us on Facebook and Twitter as @GrannellCoop