Community benefits for 2017 announced!

It is with great pleasure that we can announce annual community benefit payments for 2017 to the parishes of Bere Regis (Dorset), Wanstrow & Witham Friary (Somerset), Dyrham & Hinton (South Glos) totalling just over £28,000. This is slightly down on 2016 and due primarily to lower than average wind speeds.

Distgen continues to deliver on the pre-planning promises to put money back into the local communities hosting our Rogershill Farm, Landmark Farm and Talbot Farm wind turbines having now donated nearly £82,000!

In each case the payments are made directly to the Parish Councils to be spent on behalf of their electorate, often financing local initiatives that might otherwise struggle for funding in the current economic climate.

In response to the most recent payment, a representative of Bere Regis Parish Council said:

Thank you so much for the contribution it is always greatly received and enables us to do so much that we would otherwise be unable to do.

At the moment, we are looking to build a new village hall as the one we have is too small and not particularly disabled and elderly friendly. A larger hall will enable us to increase the number of people we can invite to our monthly lunch club for the over 60s, hold more community events and enable the doctors' surgery to carry out more treatments than their current facility allows - physiotherapy sessions for example.

 


Record Community Payments for 2016

It is with great pleasure that we can announce record levels of annual community benefit payments for 2016 to the parishes of Bere Regis (Dorset), Wanstrow & Witham Friary (Somerset), Dyrham & Hinton (South Glos) totalling just over £34,000 !

Distgen continues to deliver on the pre-planning promises to put money back into the local communities hosting our Rogershill Farm, Landmark Farm and Talbot Farm wind turbines having now donated over £58,000 in just 3 years.

In each case the payments are made directly to the Parish Councils to be spent on behalf of their electorate, often financing local initiatives that might otherwise struggle for funding in the current economic climate.

In response to the most recent payment, a representative of Bere Regis Parish Council said:

Bere Regis Parish Council would like to thank Distgen for their funding over the last 3 years which has enabled us to carry out many schemes around the Parish that we would otherwise be unable to.

Examples of such initiatives are the clearing and ongoing upkeep of our rights of way, continued funding of the Lengthsman Scheme after it’s withdrawal by DCC, ongoing support of the community lunch club and NeighbourCar schemes to enable them to provide vital services to the elder residents of the community and upgrading the Souls Moor Footpath once the building of the new school has been completed.

We have just received this years funding and will be discussing how to allocate that at the July Parish Council meeting.

 


The Death of English Onshore

While perhaps still slightly premature, in England at least on-shore wind is virtually dead - at least for the time being. The Conservative Government has slashed the Feed-in-tarrif to almost nothing and tinkered with the planning system such that only the staunchest of 'wind friendly' planning authorities would consider daring to say 'yes'. Given this counter-pronged attack there are schemes with permission going un-built and only the mad ultra-brave would consider filing for new planning permission under the current regime.

The Nimbies will be rejoicing.

Although for how long remains to be seen. The power has to come from somewhere and the Tories have decided its going to be gas. Fracked gas. With a commitment to build the next generation of gas fired power stations, if the gas isn't from UK fracking it will presumably have to come from abroad - more CO2, higher prices, less secure.

In theory at least, the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament remain wind friendly although we've yet to see what, if anything, they will offer in terms of planning and subsidy.


Abundance Generation offer SOLD OUT!

Abundance-Generation-Logo-300x112

UPDATE: Monday 24th August

SOLD OUT! - We'd like to extend a big THANK YOU to our new investors and the dedicated team at....

 


Following the huge success of our Rogershill Farm investment offer last year, we've teamed up with Abundance Generation Ltd again and have today launched our latest debenture based offering on our Talbot Farm wind turbine in Gloucestershire.

Full details are available on the Abundance web site including the prospectus and interactive returns calculator.

Why have we done this?

Before applying for planning permission we held a public meeting in Dryham where we made two promises about community benefits:

  • To donate a fixed percentage of gross annual income to the parish for the lifetime of the wind turbine.
  • To offer a direct investment opportunity so that nearby residents can benefit financially as well.

Who are Abundance Generation?

Abundance are an award winning crowd funder specialising in renewable energy projects. Started in 2011 they are fully regulated by the UK FCA and offer debenture based investments starting at just £5.

INVEST NOW 


The Guardian


Photograph: Felix Clay

This weekends Guardian newspaper featured an interview with John Zamick and Bob Carnell of distgen  talking about the challenges for the UK on-shore wind industry in light of the anti-wind stance of the newly elected Conservative government.

Despite a few factual slip-ups the article paints an accurate picture of the current state of play in which everyone is waiting to see exactly what materialises from the anti-wind pre-election rhetoric.

The full article can be found here.


1st Talbot Farm Community Payment

It is with great pleasure that today we announced our 1st community payment to the parish of Dyrham & Hinton from operation of our Talbot Farm wind turbine. The interim payment of £2,000 covers the just the first quarter of 2015 and during a period where the turbine still had a few teething troubles and so we expect next years payment to be MUCH MUCH BIGGER!

We understand the funds have already been committed to purchasing two new gazebos for community events hosted within the parish. Given the British weather we suspect they will get lots of use!

This brings total community donations from distgen wind turbines to over £25,000.

#PayingItForward


1st Landmark Farm Community Payment

It is with great pleasure that today we announced our 1st community payment to the parishes of Wanstrow and Witham Friary from operation of our Landmark Farm wind turbine. The payment of £7,498 covers the first full year of operation and is to be split equally between the two parishes

 

No news yet about what local good causes the money might be spent on but watch this space.

This brings total community donations from distgen to over £23,000.

#PayingItForward


3rd Rogershill Community Payment

It was with great pleasure that we made our 3rd annual community payment to the parish of Bere Regis in Dorset this week. With the Rogershill Farm turbine operating at near 100% availability over the past 12 months we've been able to donate the sum of £6,194 which takes total payments to over £16,000 since switch-on!

At their most recent Parish Council meeting councillors noted

"We were delighted to receive another grant from Distgen, the owners of the wind turbine at Rogers Hill, for £6,196 to put towards Council use. It was decided at the meeting that we would split the grant and put £3,500 towards the valuable village NeighbourCar and Salt and Pepper Lunch Club schemes, and the remaining £2,696 would go towards the much needed upgrade of the footpaths along Souls Moor to prepare for heavier use once the new school is open."

Community payments for Wanstrow/Witham Friary (DG004, Somerset) and Dyrham/Hinton (DG005, South Glos) are expected very shortly.

#PayingItForward

 


Climate change... what climate change?

Watching the current General Election hysteria in the media right now and one subject seems almost totally absent from the debate.

Climate Change.

Where on Earth is the debate on this or do we not care anymore? Now we all drive hybrids is the environment 'problem' all sorted?

Of course, all the parties do mention climate to lessor (or in the case of UKIP, even lessor) extent but even the Green party leader Natalie Bennett hardly mentioned it in national exposure during multiple televised debates. And yet this is an issue we ignore at our peril.

Just today a report in the Guardian claims that the top privately owned fossil fuel companies between hold reserves that it burnt would release 555 GIGATONNES of CO2 (GTCO2).

A further 2,650 GTCO2 is said to be held by state-owned companies.

Put into perspective, 555 GTCO2 is about the amount which, climate scientists believe, is the total the world could ever release with a hope of keeping world-wide temperate increases below 2 DegC - the 'climate tipping point'.

There are industry experts who believe the current low in the cost of oil is simply the result of a race by major exporters to pump as much as possible before an inevitable transition to low carbon technology forces them to leave large resources below ground. If so, any optimism is misplaced since artificially low fossil fuel prices prevent investment in alternative green sources and push the Zero Carbon Day further into the future.

So in the run-up to Election Day ask your MP a few simple questions:

  1. Do you support renewable technology, including wind? - one of the UKs greatest assets.
  2. What further incentives will your party put in place to increase the future roll-out of low carbon energy?
  3. Do you support fracking? - if so why?
  4. Do you believe in Climate Change?

UKIP worried "renewables running out"

Last week an article in the Independent shone a light on the ignorance of UKIP candidates about their own policy on renewable energy. Apparently UKIP candidate for Grimsby, Victoria Ayling, had caused chortles and sniggers during a local debate having asked "what happens when renewable energy runs out?"

Councillor Ayling has since become something of a celebrity on Twitter and other social media with thousands of quotes and re-tweets.

Subsequently Ayling has said what she meant to ask was "what happens when the subsidies for renewable energy run out?" which is probably not a great deal less silly given the UKIP policy to end subsidies for renewables.

Clearly the councillor has no idea what impact her own party's policies would have.

Worse still is the focus on one particular subsidy among many thousands purely because of an ideological hatred of wind energy. Why not come clean and just say they hate wind turbines? Both UKIP and the Conservatives pick on subsidies because energy industry regulator OFGEM continues to support on-shore wind saying it is the cheapest form of renewable energy available - ie it does actually work and is cost effective.

Both UKIP and the Conservatives are pro-fracking and would most likely seek to bias the planning system in favour of the "strategic delivery" of fracked gas in the same (but inverse) way that Mr Pickles is currently refusing wind farm appeals.

Whatever the result, the outcome of the General Election will have a major impact on the ability of the UK to deliver on future (and much tougher) environmental targets.