Notes from meeting

1. Present

Tom, Charles, Ed, John B and guests Kirsty Tooke (DARE), Chris Shears (Economic Development Officer at MDDC) and Mike Watts ( Precisely So - working with Tom)

2. Introductions

(i)                  Kirsty explained that DARE had a community energy support programme in place funded by DCC. They have 5 days of work available but this must be used by the end of March 2017.

(ii)                Chris gave us an update on MDDC's Hydromills project.

3. Opportunities for Sustainable Crediton Energy Group

(i)                  Some community groups are buying existing solar farms ( or parts of) from the original owner/developer and using any profits for community energy projects

Action : Chris Shears to send us a list of local solar farms

(ii)                Would QE School consider having a wind farm on the lower school site at Barnfield? If they were interested we should get the site listed in the draft Neighbourhood Plan. Then Neighbourhood Plan team could call for other wind farm sites to be included in the plan. After the plan referendum, if the plan is passed there might be the potential for a community wind farm project.

Action: Charles to contact Rupert Poole QE Head

(iii)               Kirsty has an idea for a demand type project involving homes close to the Den Brook wind farm.

Action: Kirsty to write a brief explaining the project and how a community group could be involved.

4. Review of Current Energy Group Activities

a)      Participate in the AD plant, Creedy Bridge and Tarka View planning processes.

On-going

b)      Contribute to the sustainability sections of the Crediton Neighbourhood Plan

On-going

c)       Negotiate an affinity scheme with Good Energy similar to the one we have with Ecotricity and promote the affinity schemes to our supporters

Linda to advise on progress towards this

d)      Investigate the feasibility of joining the Fuelling Connections scheme. This will involve seeing what resources in terms of people/time we would need to implement such a project and how success would be measured. If it looks feasible then we would have to recruit a new volunteer to run the programme.

Cancelled

e)      Contact various organisations ( eg CAB, Food Bank, Credit Union, Senior Voice, Age Concern etc) with a view to promoting the Cosy Devon central heating offer. This will be done  either as part of Fuelling Connections or as a separate activity.

Cancelled

f)       Promote draught exclusion in homes.

Cancelled

g)      Investigate and test a traffic light system for indicating to domestic consumers the times of peak electrical power demand. To encourage domestic consumers to switch their electrical power demand to off-peak times.

Tom demonstrated his prototype which had been manufactured by Mike from Precisely So. Tom is now seeking a sponsor from either the energy suppliers or network distributors to produce upto 1,000 of the devices and to supply to a trial group of consumers for a trial to see if the devices will help reduce demand. We also talked about developing a smartphone app or applet to alert consumers of times of high and low demand.

5. Resignation of Charles from Energy Group leadership

No-one has stepped forward to take over the leadership of the group.

Tom is going to speak to a neighbour who has a strong interest in local energy to see if he will become involved and perhaps take over the leadership

6. Next meeting and AOB

No next meeting date has been set, but John B is willing to host another meeting if a leader can be found.

Agenda

This is a meeting with DARE and Mid Devon to look at ways forward for the Crediton Energy Group. Thanks to DCC there may be funds available via DARE to take on new projects.

Also Charles is standing down as leader of the Energy Group, so we will be looking either for a new leader or a new way of running the group.

Review of progress towards 2016 goals.