Following Queen Elizabeth's (QE) School's decision not to
progress Sustainable Crediton's community energy proposal last
month, Sustainable Crediton have decided to end work on this
project. Charles Mossman, Project Leader, said that "we are
bitterly disappointed that our 18 month project has ended in
failure despite our best efforts to overcome the obstacles that the
Government has created since May. The Government's recent actions
have curtailed the project in that we had limited time to give QE
the confidence to commit without feeling they would jeopardise
their other interests. If there was no Government imposed cut off
deadline then a more sedate process could and would have ensued.
I'm sure given more time we could have persuaded QE not to miss out
on significant benefits to themselves and the community."
Charles explained "after the general election the Conservative
Government started making changes to their renewable energy subsidy
policies. The three changes out of about 14 which had a potential
economic impact on our project were the removal of tax relief for
investors in community renewable projects, reduced feed-in tariff
rates from January 2016 and the removal of the ability to lock-in a
feed-in tariff rate for a period of 12 months. At the start of
September we were faced with a task of applying for feed-in tariff
rates for our potential projects by the end of the month. Thanks to
the Devon Community Accelerator Fund we were able to carry out
energy performance assessments on QE School buildings and so
complete those applications."
Ed Sharpe, the business analyst within the Sustainable Crediton
project team, continued "with our applications submitted on time
and tariff rates locked-in until 30th September 2016, we
were able to finalise our business proposition for QE School and
present it to the Resources Committee in December. The proposition
offered QE £230,000 savings over a 25 year period, at no cost to
the school whilst putting all "profits" of the scheme into a
community fund for additional community projects in Crediton such
as the alleviation of fuel poverty. Regrettably QE main board
rejected the offer, their stated reason for rejecting was the
considerable risk posed to QE's major capital works programme this
summer. Governors felt that the incredibly tight timescales imposed
by the Government meant that the risks to the programme of
essential works and the longer term risks outweighed the potential
savings generated."
The project started in 2014 when Sustainable Crediton received a
grant from the Rural Communities Energy Fund to explore the
feasibility of a community renewable energy project in Crediton.
Linda Lever, project team member, elaborated "the initial focus for
solar PV was on the many suitable roofs in Lords Meadow Industrial
Estate. We held public meetings and some interest was shown, but
because many businesses rent their buildings on short leases, we
were unable to find any willing to enter a 20 year project with
us." Charles continued "we then changed our focus to schools and
presented the solar PV opportunity to the Crediton Learning
Community in January 2015. There was a lot of interest and we
carried out surveys on a number of schools including QE. We
developed a portfolio of several potential schools including QE,
Cheriton Fitzpaine, Newton St Cyres, Copplestone and Sandford.
Sadly, whilst we developed a project with QE, we had to drop
several other opportunities with the other local schools as we ran
out of time and money to apply for feed-in tariff rates."
Ed went on "this really was the final chance of a community
renewable energy project in Crediton, where local investors could
earn a good rate of return on their capital, QE school get
inexpensive electricity and a community fund built up. Recent
changes in Government policy have fatally undermined the economic
viability of future community energy projects."
Charles concluded "at Sustainable Crediton we are very
frustrated by the Government's extremely short-sighted renewable
energy policy stance. Since May 2015 and in some cases since
signing the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the Government has
systematically removed essential supports to the renewable energy
industry. It has withdrawn subsidies for new on-shore wind, reduced
subsidies for solar PV and removed tax-reliefs for investors in
community energy projects. According to DECC these changes will
save about £5 (or 1%) from the average household bill, a small
fraction of the savings that could be achieved by good regulation
of the electricity industry, for example in passing on savings from
the dramatic drop in fossil fuel prices. Additionally it has killed
off the Green Deal, increased the taxation of low emission cars to
be the same as heavily polluting vehicles, axed the carbon capture
and storage research competition, given up on zero carbon homes
whilst continuing tax incentives for oil majors, encouraging
fracking and investing in nuclear energy."
Sustainable Crediton's Energy Group are now looking at a range
of other activities for a project for 2016