Community will have green power

A country house in Devon which is part of the communal living movement will soon be powered by three forms of renewable energy. Beech Hill, a community of 14 residents near Crediton, has installed a 15 metre-tall wind turbine to generate electricity, four solar panels to heat water and a log-fuelled boiler to provide heating.

The new equipment means the community will no longer use oil-fuelled heating systems. It will provide all the heating and hot water and approximately a third of the electricity for the house, saving the annual emission of about 26 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Funding for the £90,600 energy project has been provided by £35,600 from the EDF Energy Green Fund, £7,000 from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme and the remainder by the Beech Hill Community, which has taken out a 25-year loan to get the project started.

The project builds on the work at the community where residents share a common belief in environmentally-conscious living. Residents grow their own fruit and vegetables, share regular communal meals, host a village composting site, car share, recycle waste, keep chickens and use a natural sewage treatment system.

Sue Chantrey, one of the project co-ordinators, said: “The focus at Beech Hill has always been ecological. We are always working towards being more sustainable so we have been talking about renewable energy for a long time. With climate change becoming such an issue it became more urgent and the grants made it possible. We felt it was now or never. We didn’t want to carry on using oil and we wanted to produce our own electricity.

“We have had fantastic showers since the solar panels were installed. When it’s all done the house will be warmer, as well. Only a very small part of the house was heated for the courses we run here. Others had no heating or just inefficient wood-burning stoves. The corridors were unheated and cold. Now we will have radiators everywhere powered by a log-fuelled boiler.

“Everyone can make a difference to the environment by taking small steps towards becoming more sustainable. You don’t have to put up a wind turbine to make a difference. For example, everyone can think about how much they travel and how they do it and they can conserve energy.”

EDF Energy has awarded £3million to nearly 170 renewable energy projects since the Green Fund was launched in 2001. Its purpose is to showcase renewable energy projects which produce power from the sun, wind, water and geothermal sources that reduce the greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Awards of up to £30,000 are available for projects in England, Scotland and Wales and such funds have helped schools, charities, local authorities, churches, water mills and other non-profit organisations to generate clean, green energy in their own community.

Beneficiiaries have installed a wide range of technologies, including wind turbines and solar panels, along with less well-established technologies such as biomass boilers, ground source heat pumps and micro hydropower generators.

The awards are provided in partnership with customers who choose renewable energy for their home through its Green Tariff. This tariff gives consumers an active choice in driving demand for renewable energy as EDF Energy purchases renewable energy to the value of their consumption. Customers who join the tariff pay an extra 0.4p per unit of electricity they use, which is less than £15 a year for the average household. This money is matched pound for pound by EDF Energy to provide the grants awarded by the Green Fund.

Green Building Press

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