Does this link help

http://www.greenerforlife.co.uk/press-release.php

Derek

I am not sure this is the best place to reply – but here it is…

I’ve been reading your blog solidly for the last few hours – I like it .. certainly much more interesting than doing paperwork elsewhere on my desk !

I’m interested in alternative technologies and de-centralised energy production – particularly from the ‘brown’ coloured variety.

I’m currently working as a development engineer (near Uley) on a community based – ‘micro’ scale biogas system and have been amazed by the level of interest from friends / locals.

Back to the point of my posting – Macro or Micro / Urban or Rural – power generation or waste processing all need attention and I want to be a part of that change of moving away from conventional coal power etc… but after several meetings with business link to discuss my plans for future research and development ~ they go all blank on me and talk about the weather ??

Do you know of someone I can talk to locally (Stroud valley-ish preferably) who could help me establish a not-for-profit independent research facility focusing on alternative technologies / waste processing / recycling technology / technical training school ?

Thanks – sorry for this random post, you can hit delete now…

Arguments rage, eg search at http://www.fieldlines.com/ but in any case if you are in a UK urban area your permitted development rights don’t include tracking panels AFAIK!

Rgds

Damon

from my limited knowledge, i believe you get the same output by reflecting mirrors onto a small pv cell as you do my having lots of pv cells. i guess this contraption would be easier to set up with mirrors or could you set up the bimetallic strips to reflect the sunlight somehow directly onto the pv cell? talking of Nottingham uni (great bunch of guys there by the way) Tarmac are building a house with solar thermal (and pv) on a low angled roof (22o) “to maximise the winter sun”. I know that I am not bright so I am hoping someone can explain how this roof will work in the winter. surely if the sun is low in the sky you want the roof nearly vertical (~70o) to capture the most of the winter sun (not nearly horizontal)? I know the BEDZED boys have designed it, so I am sure I am the idiot not them, but it does seem counterintuitive. Visit

http://www.tarmachomesproject.co.uk

to see for yourself.

I guess some of you guys will be kicking about Ecobuild next week admiring all the Greenwash, I’ll see you there! I am on a stand greenwashing!

Dave

As some one who has done it all, from micro solar and wind (Windsave and my own system) to being a founding director of Adam Twine’s super duper Westmill wind farm (really terrific man that Adam!), I do feel that all new houses perhaps aught to be fitted with solar hot water panels – especially new builds. I currently have a small scale wind turbine development facility down at Westmill, and am helping a small Chinese company develop a ’913′ sized turbine. I once drove a ‘Smiths Cabac’ milk float 200 miles across the country when I moved to Oxfordshire from Lincolnshire some years – that was some adventure!
Oops – didn’t mean to ramble!

Have you ever heard of VRB energy storage, the DTI are angling to part fun the UK’s first VRB plant, Google ‘Sorne Hill VRB’ This refers to the Irish wind energy storage project, which is expanding. My interest in VRB energy storage is partly political, on the one hand, it will help derail the nauseating nuclear power gravy train, and on the other, it will shut the NIMBY’s up for good, blowing their ‘intermittent and unreliable’ argument out of the water.

Simon

Derek

I will sort you out with some bits

Would you drop me a mail with your preferred postal address?

Paul

Looking forward to hearing from Ecotricity.

Meanwhile my PV extension is now due for next week! B^>

Can your bloke at least mail me ASAP a bunch of single-sheet fliers and maybe some of your window stickers to hand out to the local kids who will be interested and might get their parents interested?

Rgds

Damon

Cheers.

I’ve asked one of our guys to come up with some ideas and to get in touch. It’s about time we had something like this for our customers I reckon.

BTW – fascinating to read about your MotorWind adventures.

Cheers.

Even my nice little MotorWind http://www.earth.org.uk/wind-power-pilot-autumn-2007-MotorWind.html delivers a contribution to my small off-grid system too small to measure, even having sited it as best as I can…

Rgds

Damon

(Yes Simon, alive and well!)

My local council is hopefully going to say yes in the next day or so to my next round of PV, and are already interested in (a) the performance data and (b) what effect a highly-visible installation will have on the thinking of people around us ie in considering their own PV or more likely their current use of electricity.

I hope in fact that a few people will come to our door and ask about what we’re doing. I shall have a power meter or two to lend out and maybe an Ecotricity info pack (c’mon Dale, what about a £5 referral fee and a nice A4-printable summary for some viral marketing?). I’ll try not to bore them to death… B^>

Rgds

Damon

Off subject… Hi Damon, hope you are well!

Simon

Hopefully at some point in the near future I’d like to go down the self-build route and set up a little hydro, although finding the right location can be a bit of a challenge.

I’ll update on that later as the scheme here progresses.

Cheers.

@ Chris

Thanks for your post Chris. I’ve also read with some interest the exchanges on this between you and Alex Honey. The whole thing is very intriguing, though I won’t pretend I get it at all. Will drop you a line.

Cheers.

The criteria for the model are:

(a) “MegaWatts”

How much revenue from sales of electricity will an investment in renewables produce over the expected life of an asset, after a %age for operating costs.

(b) “NegaWatts”

How much energy will be saved over a period by investing in energy saving (where operating costs don’t really come into it much).

While the model reduces financing costs dramatically, it can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Buying PV and other microgen – which is the point of this thread – costs a very large amount indeed (albeit reducing with new technology) per Kilowatt Hour produced over the expected life of these assets.

So the only people who would invest in microgen currently are either altruists or optimists.

Answering Alex specifically…

The model would reduce payback time due to the fact that financial costs (eg interest on loans) are cut.

But it wouldn’t do more than that if all you did was connect to the grid and sell your juice “wholesale”.

How a Community Energy Partnership works is that the asset is “owned” by a “Custodian” member of the CEP Limited Liability Partnership.

This would be your charity.

A “Developer/Operator” member (could be a mini consortium) develops, maintains and operates the kit, in return for an agreed proportional share of its production – or rather the revenues from the sale of the production.

It is therefore in their interests to provide the best possible kit, and maintain it to the best possible standard, because that way they make more money.

The “Investor” is a consortium of Investors who buy “Shares” redeemable in (say) 10 Kilo Watt Hour Units, or the revenue from sales of these Units to a utility.

Customers use electricity as now, pay the utility, and the utility buys from customers, as now.

In the CEP model the utility would do the billing, and offset Units presented by individuals to the CEP for redemption against those individuals’ bills.

Where it gets interesting is where there are Investors who are local consumers, and the potential for a private wire.

Because this cuts out the utility, and allows investors to redeem or sell Units locally at a local retail price, rather than the utility’s lower “wholesale” price.

It can even be economic to use local battery or mini pumped storage solutions, (ie store energy at times of low local consumption and release it locally at peaks) rather than sell to utilities.

As you say, the paybacks on energy saving schemes, eg ground source heating and retrofit CHP are even better.

Here, “heat loans” could be made to the property – not the occupier. In Berkeley, California, it is planned for low interest municipal loans for funding solar PV to be made and repayments collected in this way through “property assessments”.

How this might work – this is early thinking – is by an addition to water rates (“Hot Water Rates”?), whereby payments are made to repay the “Energy Loan” received from Investors.

The water company would collect an amount calculated on a Cost per Btu.

The consumer would then pay a reduced bill for energy (Btu’s) actually consumed, and would repay the “energy loan” to the Pool at a minimum of x btu’s per year at the market price per btu.

As you can tell, I haven’t got to the bottom of all detail of the “NegaWatt” concept yet, but the architecture is pretty clear, and pretty persuasive.

One of the likely outcomes is that quite a few of the Units created might never be redeemed, or would not be redeemed for years, but circulate locally instead, and this would essentially confer a “seignorage” benefit of what would have become a local energy-based currency.

http://www.kilowattcards.com/template/index.cfm

gives an insight into the potential for monetising energy…

Best Regards

Chris

Rgds

Damon

Can you get your Dad to rig us something at the local watermill? I have always loved his “homemade” machines on the telly.

Regards

Alex

Can you give a practical example of how these funding arrangements might work.

For instance taking our local sawmill as an example. owned by a charuty, about 3kW available about £100k to connect up to the grid and gubbins etc. Payback through traditional routes about 30 years. How does your system overcome these numbers? As I presume this would be a common result for many projects in termss of payback. I am interested in the who owns what, maintenance, who receives any income etc etc

Very interested in the concept, just trying to understand it fully, please bear in mind that I am just a simple civil engineer!

Could you renovate a street of terrace houses with this system, as the payback period could be much lower with these project types.

kind regards

Alex

I’ve heard it suggested more than once that buying PV or other microgen can usefully be thought of as ‘prepaying’ for electricity, ie “paying forward” as the capital markets people (an you!) say!

Rgds

Damon

In fact, the “Capital Partnership” was the “micro investment” element of our “Hanseatic Microfinance Initiative”.

The other element, maybe even more radical, and what really attracted the Norwegians, is a form of mutualised “Peer to Peer” “micro credit” and procurement support tool, using a risk sharing mutual guarantee mechanism we call a “Guarntee Society”.

Rather than interest being paid for bilateral “Trade” credit created peer to peer between Seller and Buyer, a provision is made into a mutually owned default fund, for the use of a mutual guarantee. Also Buyers may – with the Seller’s agreement – settle credit in “money’s worth” rather than money ie optional barter settlement.

Plus operating costs,for the use of the system.

In both cases, micro credit and micro investment the result is “banking” without a bank as middleman, but with institutions formerly known as banks acting as service providers, no longer putting capital at risk by creating credit based upon it.

I digress.

We see our proposed “Community Energy Partnerships” (we are looking for pilot schemes) as “micro-ESCO’s”.

The difference is that we see our partnership approach as aligning the interests of stakeholders in a way that Companies fundamentally never can – whether “For Profit” or “Not for Profit”.

This is because all Companies (and “look alikes” eg Industrial and Provident Societies) suffer from an inherent “Principal/Agency” conflict between the interests of “Owners”, and their agents, the Directors and Management.

In tightly held Companies like Ecotricity that this conflict is minimised, but it’s still there if ther are paid employees.

The short answer is we plan to start as small as necessary, and simply link and network “micro” together to create “macro” scale within a common framework.

Essentially the outcome is not an “Organisation” but “self organisation” within a LLP as framework agreement.

This could give rise to a networked partnership between a consortium of service providers, and a consortium of service users, with capital provided by service users “paying forward” for production.

Best Regards

Chris

really interesting entry about financing, being an old cynic what’s in it for the Norwegian Government?

Do these financial instruments only work on large projects or could they scaled down to say providing renewable energy for 40 houses, utilising an ESCO type approach?

regards

Alex

Quite right. It’s about the numbers.

But I’ve come to the conclusion in recent years (form a background in energy markets – I was a Director of the International Petroleum Exchange and recently gave evidence to the Treasury Select Committee in relation to oil markets) that it’s also about the legal and financial structures or “enterprise model” we take for granted.

As an entrepreneurial developer you are always restricted by access to capital, whether Equity (where outside investment would dilute you) or Debt, which is risky, expensive and of course less accessible now, post “Credit Crunch”.

I advocate – and have been developing in Scotland with Norwegian government funding – a simple but radical “Energy Partnership” framework, where investment essentially comes from “unitising” renewable energy (“MegaWatts”) and energy savings (“NegaWatts”)and selling the units forward to investors.

ie not shares or debt as we know them Jim, but Units redeemable against energy consumed or indeed, against “energy loans” received to (say) retrofit CHP.

This “asset based” model wipes the floor with conventional “deficit-based” financing, and is the sort of thing that a hippy like you might find appealing, I suspect…

If so, please contact me off line.

Best Regards

Chris Cook