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Just recovering from the Communities Living Sustainably Grant Meeting yesterday, when we met with the Partners. Estimated length of meeting 4 hours! The BIG Lottery facilitator took us through the CAT - the community buttessment tool. This is a 60 item questionnaire, for describing the social, economic and environmental aspects of Harborough, asking whether any surveys, reports or assessments have been made in each aspect. Even by half way through, it was appearing as a rather blunt tool to use to monitor progress of the grant associated activities. However, if anything was gained from this long session, was that for each of our many activities, we will need to build in a monitoring tool for ourselves, to demonstrate to BIG (Big Lottery Grant association) that we are or have used the money wisely and appropriately to mitigate and avert adverse affects of climate change on Harborough. I hope all partners were understanding of the need for this tool, and will remain hugely enthusiastic and optimistic as we gather ideas for projects to enter for the final application (due in for the 25th June if not the week before) for the five million pounds (over five years) for Harborough!
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The Green Light Festival was very exciting -lots of people and stalls, all exuding green posters, table clothes and hangings. Behind every stall, a passionate team wanting to tell you their story and share their products. The Queens Building at the DeMontfort University is it's self of architectural reknown being an early innovator of energy efficient design. The building reverberated with people, throbbing drums and appetite alluring Indian cuisine, vying with rows of home made cakes and pizza, leaving the tiny 'I love chocolate' stall , with heaving queues of us wanting to satisfy our indulgent desires.
I stood right next to the door where the drum music poured in until finally common sense had us close the door, persuading the music to travel the longer distance through the hall to us! At the Green Fox Energy stall we encouraged children to ice fairy cakes with pictures of green foxes, leaving the parents to hear about the window of opportunity to support our local energy co-op. The day of the co-op launch being the day of the Green Light Festival and the last day of the LEAF grant funding that enabled the co-op to have experts to help set it up. It is hoped to raise sufficient funding by the selling of shares (with a potential interest rate of 5-6%) to install the PV panels to be up and running by July when the FIT degresses (falls in value). The community roof owners will be able to use as much electricity as the PV generates, the rest of the electricity will be sold back to the grid as renewably produced energy, and the profit from this will be shared between the community roof owner and the Green Fox Energy Co-op. Being a 'not for profit' group, this profit will go towards the share holders interest and the next local energy project.
So whilst the Leicester based Green Fox Co-op are looking for investors, we in the Harborough Transition are looking to flesh out the successful initial proposal that won us the £10,000 Sustainable Community Big Lottery grant. The initial proposal brought together lots of ideas needed to move Harborough towards becoming more sustainable in the face of climate change challenges (extreme hot and cold weather, droughts and floods). This is particularly with vulnerable groups in mind, for example the young and the old. Learning from experiences at the Green Fox Co-op and the Leicester Whetstone Community Allotment, I am hoping to help champion Eco schools and local food/land symbiosis with sustainability. Earlier this week, I contacted Lubenham Primary School to ask for help to brain storm ideas that the Harborough Group of Primary Schools may wish to be part of. Today I 'interviewed' the Whetstone Allotment Team to garner their experience and advice.
The next date for the diary is the 12th of April for a planning meeting at the Angel Hotel to put these ideas together for the next part of the Big Lottery Fund grant application.
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Today I am going to start blogging. I have felt that I have been on the crest of a wave of innovation this week. You will need to tell me whether this is a figment of my imagination or whether there is even more going on than I am aware of!
The Green Light Festival is on this Saturday at the DeMontfort University, Queens Building, in Leicester from 10-5 or 6. You must go as this will be where the Leicester Transition's energy group are looking for people interested in shares in their new Green Fox Co-operative.. There has been a flurry of social enterprises appearing over the last year. These have been taking advantage of grants specifically to finance experts to support the setting up. The flavour of the enterprises are to help local communities become sustainable as climate changes occur, and the production of oil and gas are increasingly difficult to sustain as global supplies are now dwindling. The rush to set up these energy enterprises have been driven by government incentives - the renewable heat incentive (RHI) and the feed in tariffs (FIT). One dead line passed on the 3rd of March when the FIT fell from 43p to 21p per Kw hour electricity sold back to the grid, and the next dead line is 31st March as the the RHI closes. The next dead line is in July when the FIT reduces again, making the selling of co-operative shares less conducive as the interest on the shares falls.
In the Leicester Green Fox sustainable energy co-operative, so newly formed, we have been doing financial modeling this week. With the expert help from Eithie from the Share Energy coo-op, we looked at the production of Kw hours electricity from a combination of PV systems on four large roof spaces in Leicester that ranged from 50 to 175Kw hours each. Share interest rates might typically be obtained in the range of 1.8 to 5.5% (a clever computer package works this out!). Now we need to go back and review the roofs for 25 year durability, 'D' energy ratings of the buildings checked for, look for quotes from installers and get full technical buttessment for each roof, contact the DNO to check the local grid can cope with the extra influx of electricity if necessary, and prepare the share offers.
Why am I writing about this on the HarboroughTransition web site? Because sharing of ideas and support between different groups helps strengthen local enterprises. This week the Harborough Transition group who have recently obtained a £10,000 Big Lottery Grant will be fleshing out many ideas on our wish list of projects in Harborough that will make Harborough such a green and good place to live in!
Come to the Green Light Festival for an update on all this innovation! My part? Making fairy cakes decorated with our memorable logo - another good incentive for checking all this out!
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