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Sun 28 Sep 2014, 18:33 (last edited on Sun 28 Sep 2014, 18:35)
Charlie, the revenues are of course linked to the feed in tariffs and these, as you have pointed out, are always dropping, sometimes at short notice, but always reviewed on a 3 monthly basis. The initial scheme proposed was for a 5.5MW scheme, but in order to reduce the number of panels and therefore the visual impact we are now looking at a maximum 5MW scheme. The returns to the community are based on a combination of the current feed in tariffs and the construction and installation cost of the project. There is currently a DECC consultation https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/support-for-community-energy-projects-under-the-feed-in-tariffs-scheme on fixing feed in tariffs for community renewable energy schemes such as ours. Once a scheme such as ours has all the necessary permissions it can pre-register for the feed in tariff and that rate is then locked in for the duration of the scheme. It is therefore in the interests of the community, should it so wish, to get the scheme approved sooner rather than later so as to lock in to the feed in tariff at the earliest opportunity.
So, a combination of falling feed in tariffs and a reduced scheme would be the reasons for a drop in the projected revenues and community benefits, although this may be offset to some degree by falling construction costs. Even so, the sums coming back to the community each year are still very considerable and this is due to the fact that once investors have been paid their dividend(a modest 5% plus EIS tax relief where applicable) all of the profits will come back to the community. The feed in tariff rate is something that is outside of our control and the eventual size of the scheme, should it proceed, will be determined by the results of the Bring Your Brolly Day exercise yesterday and the community response to the presentation of those results(October 9th Memorial Hall).
With regard to your second point on the degree of support that this community scheme has I can say the following:
1) Invitations to both public meetings were delivered by hand to every household in Charlbury, Finstock and Fawler.
2) The community survey was delivered by hand to every household in Charlbury, Finstock and Fawler, as well as being advertised and able to be completed online on the Sustainable Charlbury website www.sustainablecharlbury.org. We carried out a door-to-door collection of these surveys, providing also the opportunity for residents to talk to us about the scheme.
As I am sure you can understand these were all extremely time consuming exercises and carried out not only by Southill Solar organisers(all Charlbury residents) but also a very welcome number of additional volunteers eager to help out.
We had a 26% response rate to the survey, which in marketing terms would usually be regarded as very successful. From the returned surveys we had 76% support for our solar renewable scheme. You will already be aware that we also had over 95% support for the scheme through a show of hands at both public meetings that you attended.
The Town Council also backed our scheme, wrote to WODC in support of the application and spoke in support of the scheme at the planning committee meeting. There were approximately 26 letters of objection but nearly 60 letters of support sent into WODC.
I hope this goes some way to addressing the issues you raise and I/we from the Southill Solar team are always very happy to answer any questions that arise.
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