Power from the Landscape

Jul

16

2010

The Green Valleys project and Heron Corn Mill

This weeks blog takes a quick look at funding - firstly; the Green Valleys project in the Brecon Beacons. This is one of the most interesting and effective hydro projects in the UK. The Green Valleys is a not for profit Community Interest Company based in the Brecon Beacons National Park. Established in May 2009 the Green Valleys Organisation was Wales' only finalist in NESTA's Big Green Challenge competition and enables and supports community groups in the area in sourcing and installing community owned micro generation projects for community benefit. The Brecon Beacons has the ideal geography and topography for small scale hydro-electric generation upon the multitude of small streams and steep sided valleys that frequent the area. So far there are 10 hydropower installations within the Green Valleys ranging from a couple of kilowatts to 36kW. More information on these can be found here.

Some funding for the installed hydro schemes came from the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority’s Renewable Energy Assistance Program (REAP) and obviously following their success in the Big Green Challenge (winning a £300,000 award) seed funding is available from the GReen Valleys.

Sadly this isn't always the case elsewhere and the high initial costs of hydro schemes is still a big barrier to development. Several schemes here in the South Pennines have come up against an initial £80,000-£120,000 investment (for 10-30kW) and this presents a real issue. Other schemes have even higher costs - £50,000 for 3.5kW... Obviously this is not viable unfortunately.

Private funding seems to be on the increase though - feed in tariffs have aroused the interest of private and corporate investors (see the funding links page on this site for examples) and I have had fielded several offers of investment (and/or buying sites) to fund schemes. Typcially 3rd party financing of schemes will pay in the region of 5-10% of revenue as rent - obviously this depends on the site and numbers for that site. If you would like more information on this please don't hesitate to contact me.

Another way round the high initial costs (and several thousand pounds of this - upto £20,000 in some cases - will need to be spent before a scheme even gets the go ahead from the Environment Agency and local planning depts.) is to use specialist community scheme developers H2OPE who fund schemes to get the appropriate licences before the community has to raise money itself.

However the high initial cost of hydro is likely to remain as a barrier for the foreseeable future - both for schemes above 15kW (as the total cost will be high - £60,000+ usually) and for those below 15kW - partly as the Microgeneration Certification Scheme requirements for using accredited installers and products means that the payback will likely be over 10 years, so although the total investment required is more realistic the payback is much longer.

And to finish - a great time lapse film of the Heron Corn Mill hydro installation. One frame every 10 minutes (in daytime) between June '09 and April '10 showing the development of the scheme there - http://heronmill.org/cam.shtml

Blog

Alternative technology Centre - Hebden Bridge

The Green Valleys project and Heron Corn Mill

About the project

Sites

Power From the Landscape