Sadberge Renewable Energy Project

The Sadberge Renewable Energy Project involves (a) setting up a 'group purchase' scheme to enable and encourage Sadberge households to get solar panels installed on their roofs, and (b) setting up a community-based company to offer 'PV for free' arrangements to property owners – including Darlington Borough Council – who have south-facing roofs but who, for whatever reason, don't want to buy their own solar panels at the moment.

Latest news

Friday 30-Sep-2011 Five solar photovoltaic systems have been installed in connection with the Sadberge Renewable Energy Project and two more are due to be installed within the next few weeks. Solar panels have been installed on four private properties in Sadberge and on the Dogs Trust rehoming centre to the north of the village, and orders have been placed for solar PV systems on a farm near Sadberge and a private property in West Newbiggin.

The community-based company – Sadberge Renewable Energy Limited (SREL) – is up and running. 23 Sadberge residents have each taken an initial £10 shareholding, and the directors are Millie Scaife (Chair of the Board), Richard Bond, Alastair Mackenzie and John Stockton.

SREL has made offers to install solar panels on a 'PV for free' basis on Sadberge Village Hall, 11 Council properties in Sadberge, 5 private properties in the village and a farm in West Newbiggin.

Unfortunately, it looks as if Darlington Borough Council will be unable to complete their assessment and approval processes in time to sign up to their 'PV for free' offers this time round (although it may be possible for SREL to renew the offers next year) and it looks as if the Church will be unable to participate because of legal costs.

Cleaner Air Solutions decided to withdraw from participation in the Sadberge Renewable Energy Project after the first phase – having honoured the quotations that they had already issued – so SREL has started a tendering process to find an installer for the 'PV for free' systems.

CE Electric – which has been very helpful throughout – has given its approval for all the relevant grid connections at no charge.

You can use this link to view an archive of old news bulletins.

The Sadberge Renewable Energy Project

The Sadberge Renewable Energy Project is the follow-up to the award-winning Sadberge Energy Saving Project. The project, which is latest phase of our efforts towards the Sadberge Parish Plan objective of "being environmentally responsible, and in particular making a contribution towards combating climate change" is being run by the Sadberge Climate Change Working Group with the backing of Sadberge Parish Council.

The project involves:

setting up a "group purchase" scheme to help and encourage Sadberge households to install solar panels on their roofs and generate their own carbon-free electricity which – as well as helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions – will enable them to take advantage of the very attractive financial returns available from the government's Clean Energy Cashback scheme; and
setting up a community-based company – Sadberge Renewable Energy Limited – to offer 'PV for free' arrangements to the Church (for Sadberge Village Hall), Darlington Borough Council (for about a dozen of the council houses in the village) and those householders who have south-facing roofs but who, for whatever reason, don't want to buy their own solar panels at the moment.

Why solar power?

Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems deliver both climate and financial benefits.

Generating electricity from sunlight reduces carbon dioxide emissions, which helps to combat climate change.

Also, under the Clean Energy Cashback scheme, householders installing solar PV systems get three sources of financial benefit:-

When the householders uses electricity from their own solar PV system rather than importing it from the grid they save the cost of buying that electricity from their supplier. That saves about 12p - 13p per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
Excess electricity from the solar PV system is exported to the grid, earning the householder income of 3.1p per kWh.
For all electricity generated by the solar PV system – whether it is used by the household or exported to the grid – the householder can claim a cashback payment of 43.3p per kWh.

According to the Sadberge Climate Change Working Group's calculations, a typical 2 kWp solar PV system on a south-facing roof in the north east of England should generate income and savings of about £800 per year. The cashback and export payments are index-linked (by the RPI) for the 25-year life of the solar PV system, and there's no income tax on the payments to householders.

Sadberge Renewable Energy Limited

The core of the Sadberge Renewable Energy Project is the 'group purchase' scheme that aims to enable householders to obtain solar PV systems at attractive prices, boosting the financial returns.

However, the Climate Change Working Group has also recognised that some Sadberge residents who would be interested in investing in solar PV systems don't have south-facing sloping roofs, while some Sadberge property owners – including the Church (which owns the village hall), Darlington Borough Council (which has a number of council houses in Sadberge) and some householders – have properties with suitable south-facing sloping roofs but don't have the funds to – or, for whatever reason, simply don't want to – buy their own solar PV systems at present.

We have therefore set up a community-based company – Sadberge Renewable Energy Limited – that will use investments from Sadberge residents to fund a 'PV for free' scheme for Sadberge.

In a 'PV for free' scheme the company leases a property owner's roof space for the installation of solar panels, which remain the property of the company. The resident – the Sadberge Village Hall Association in the case of the village hall, the tenant in the case of a council house and the householder in the case of a private property – gets free electricity from the solar panels, and the company gets its income from the Clean Energy Cashback Scheme payments. We are confident that there are good financial returns from this type of arrangement, because a number of companies are operating 'PV for free' schemes on a fully commercial basis.

Sadberge Renewable Energy Limited is an ordinary private limited company, except that the Articles of Association specifies that:-

The directors have to be Sadberge residents.
The directors will not receive any remuneration from the company.
Each year, the directors will consider whether a proportion of the previous year's profits should be used to fund renewable energy project(s) in Sadberge, and/or donated to community organisations in Sadberge.

Grid connections

Adding about 100 kW of generation capacity into the local electricity distribution system is not a trivial operation. After all, the distribution system was designed to deliver electricity from the national grid to individual houses, not to enable householders to export electricity back into the grid.

The Climate Change Working Group approached the local network operator, CE Electric UK, which carried out a detailed study of what needs to be done to enable Sadberge's solar PV systems to be connected to the grid in a safe and effective way.

Fortunately, CE Electric has now been able to give approval for all the requested grid connections at no charge.

Press coverage

Date	Publication
22-Feb-2011	Northern Echo
4-Mar-2011	D&S Times
5-Mar-2011	Northern Echo
26-Apr-2011	Evening Gazette

Further information

If you would like any further information about the Sadberge Renewable Energy Project, please contact Alastair Mackenzie on 01325-333333 or 07966-312980.

You can use this link to return to the Sadberge web site home page.

SADBERGE RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECT