Winds of change blow for Borders communities
Monday, January 22 2007
On 31 January, the Borders Sustainable Energy Forum will welcome Alan Hobbett, a Business Development Manager with the Dunfermline Building Society, who will talk about how community-owned wind farms can become a reality for Borders communities.
In particular he will focus on the Isle of Gigha, which has the first and only grid-connected, community-owned wind farm. He will be joined by Alastair Brown, Operations Director with Berwickshire Housing Association, who are very active in the field of renewable energy.
Both speakers will discuss how Housing Associations can utilise and incorporate wind farms into developments and Alastair will discuss the various renewable energy initiatives within the Berwickshire Housing Association Group, including the first live residential hydrogen-powered Micro Combined Heat & Power (CHP) Fuel Cell in the UK and Europe and a complete solar roof generating approx. 15,000 kW hours of free energy per annum.
This event follows on from a seminar held before Christmas, when the Borders Sustainable Energy Forum welcomed Hugh Donnelly from Scottish Co-operative Development, who described how various communities across the UK have embraced this challenge.
Alan will outline how community-owned wind farms could present Borders communities with the opportunity not only to generate cleaner, greener energy for their own use, but with the opportunity to generate a profit for the community by selling electricity to the national grid. This profit can then be used to carry out projects and fund initiatives within the community and can be substantially more than the annual payments that some companies currently make to communities in the vicinity of a windfarm.
The main obstacle to communities developing their own windfarms is cost. However, Gigha has been able to overcome these initial financing problems and now has an operational windfarm. As some communities in the Borders are already thinking about developing their own green energy supplies the success story from Gigha should boost morale, showing that community-owned windfarms are a realistic option.
Alan Hobbett is a voluntary Director of Gigha Renewable Energy Limited, the subsidiary company established by the Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust to develop and manage the island’s wind farm. He is also a voluntary Director of the Highlands and Islands Community Energy Company Limited.
As Director of Operations at Berwickshire Housing Association and Berwickshire Limited, Alastair Brown has been responsible for the research, development and deployment of a diverse range of Renewable Energy Systems since the birth of the Association in 1995.
This event on the 31 January, 4:15 for 4:30 -6:30pm at Tweed Horizons is free but as places are limited, please contact Sarah Glendinning, New Ways Co-ordinator, to book a place, on 01835 826542 or online by Monday 29th January.
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