Proud, proud, proud. Community Energy Wales wind turbine project…

We can do wonderful things when we work together. The 900kw EWT turbine now up in Carmarthenshire. Over 2GWh pa annum here we come

Nothing beats doing things. Talking is ok and can change things but achievement in my mind is leaving a legacy (a good one). We are a few days from completion (G59 grid switch on 3rd of August) of this 900kw Community Energy Wales wind turbine in Carmarthenshire. As a director of Community energy Wales this is one of the best renewable energy projects i have been involved because of the very short time frame, the £1.8m raised to build and most of us are volunteers. But this is a full on team effort lead by Jeremy Thorp as the coordinator of this multi headed hydra. The representative body of the Community Energy sector in Wales took on a commercial wind turbine prospective project which had stalled and developed, funded, built and commissioned quite a big project. Good idea discussed earlier in the year, construction started in May and completion will be in the first few days in August. The breadth of quality oozes from every aspect of this project from the manufacturer EWT co financing part of the construction phase,  environmentally conscious people underwriting part of the construction phase and through to Welsh Government stepping in to part finance the project phase. The project is stunning in every aspect from financial management, the project construction contract suite and warranties and so on through to the company engineer we took on to represent CEW during the build so that we could react quickly was again top drawer stuff.

Now what next? Once up and running we will then start on the community share offer so that as many people as possible can own a share of this large project and move the benefit as far and as wide as possible. We will start on a community benefit fund and anything remaining will be used to keep Community Energy Wales going delivering support and outcomes. As part of CEW I am doing quite a bit of ministerial and assembly members work in dealing with this terrible business rates legacy. I addressed a cross party group last week, we have many encounters with minister’s, questions now going to parliament, first minister, heads of stuff, senior civil servants and the list goes one and one. (ps we are stronger together…did you know that?)

This entry was posted in CommunityEnergy, Wales, wind energy and tagged community energy wales, energy efficiency, EWT, Fit for the future, Jeremy Thorpe, Keith Jones, National Trust Blog, sustainability, Wales, wind energy. Bookmark the permalink.

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