LED Lighting has many advantages over other forms of lighting in most circumstances.
It is very low energy and good quality LEDs should have a life time of 10 to 15 years.
In our Local Matters community space we sell a range of LEDs at a competitive price. If we don’t have want you want we can make enquiries to source them for you.
We’re open from 11:00 to 13:00 from Mon. to Sat. or you could call us to make an appointment on 0800-233-5414 or email hello@tamarenergycommunity.com.
Our 2018 Tamar Energy Fest was on Saturday, 24th November in Tavistock Town Hall. Thanks to all our exhibitors an visitors for helping make it a great event.
We talked about The Power in Your Hands to save energy, reduce bills, generate your own and help the planet, highlighting changes in the industry towards ‘smart’ … opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of homes, business and travel … as well as local generation and storage.
We showcased our progress with our OpenLV pilot including our work with St. Peter’s School and the Eco Club, our Energy Advice Service, our Bedford Cottages work and our Community Solar installations.
We were also delighted to be joined by Precious Plastic Tavistock, our local Community Growers and the local Eco Church community.
Our programme of talks ran through the day. You can download a programme here.
Our trusted exhibitors on the day included Mike Wye Natural Building Products, New Generation Energy, Utility Warehouse, ZLC Energy, and The Fell Partnership … more below …
Adding to the day’s fun and enjoyment were Red Squirrel Tree Care’s free woodland themed photo booth and our Energy Cafe with delicious locally sourced cakes … and warm and hot drinks … PLUS our Energy themed quiz for all the family.
The Talks were all held in the Rundle Room.
We’d like to thank our Exhibitors for giving up their Saturday to be with us … including
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Our 2019 Annual General Meeting was held on Friday 6th March 2020 in Lower Deck Cafe, United Reformed Church, Russell Street, Tavistock. PL19 8BD.
It was a well attended evening enjoyed by all. More details here
The formal announcement and agenda is available here.
The minutes will be available soon.
Our 2018 Annual General Meeting was held on Monday 12th November 2018 at Local Matters, Elbow Lane, Tavistock. PL19 0BG.
The formal proceedings commencenced at 19:30 following refreshments and introductions.
The minutes are available here
The agenda is available here.
Our 2017 AGM (Accounts to 5th Apr. 2017) was held on 26th March 2018 in Local Matters, Elbow Lane, Tavistock.
The minutes are available here.
The agenda is available here.
We’d like to thank Katie Reville from S. Dartmoor Community Energy for her engaging presentation about their work.
The Power in Your Hands is a local community energy initiative running in the Greenlands area of Tavistock for local householders and St. Peter’s School.
If YES, get in touch … Call 0800-233-5414, email hello@tamarenergycommunity.com or let us know your details via our Contact Form.
If you’d like to take part in our Householders Survey here’s a link to it online. It will take between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.
Find out more here.
Tamar Energy Community and our partners have some very broad eligibility requirements.
We want to be able to help as many people as we can by extending the service to anyone that either is already in, or is at risk of falling into fuel poverty.
It is open to all types of householders – homeowners, private renters and social housing tenants.
You only need to qualify on one of the points in any of the three categories (Income, Health or Vulnerability) below in order to be eligible for the scheme.
If you think you qualify you can call Tamar Energy Community on 0800-233-5414 to arrange a visit or complete our online form here.
Income Criteria
Anyone receiving one of the following:
| No. of children / young persons under 18 in household | Household | |
| One Adult | Two Adults | |
| 0 | £14,520 | £21,780 |
| 1 | £19,140 | £26,400 |
| 2 | £23,760 | £31,020 |
| 3 | £28,380 | £35,640 |
| 4 | £33,000 | £40,260 |
Health Criteria
Anyone with one of the following:
Vulnerability Criteria
Anyone in one of the following situations:
The Power in Your Hands project will be providing data on the energy use of households, and St. Peter’s School, which are in the Greenlands area of Tavistock, and connected to the Meavy Way low voltage (LV) substation.
We’re developing a computer based application, which you could also access on a tablet or smart phone.
This will provide information about energy use across the substation area at different times of the day.
Going forward, energy companies will be looking at introducing tariffs with different rates at different times of the day.
We’d like to give you an opportunity to work with us to understand how this could benefit you in the future.
Here’s an example of information we’ll be providing. It’s in the form of graphs and shows usage on October 4th.
The first one shows the power used across the Meavy Way LV substation by each of the three ‘feeders’ (each substation has a number of ‘feeds’ to the different properties. Meavy Way has three feeders).
The second one shows the total power used by everyone connected to the Meavy Way substation.
Here’s a graph showing generation of energy from the sun at our six community solar sites in August 2020
Here’s a graph of our six community solar sites and their generation between June and November 2019.
Key:
We’re excited to be one of seven community energy pilots running in the UK, as part of a ground breaking trial, to understand how the changes in the way that energy is generated and used in the future will impact you.
We believe there could be opportunities for you to have more influence on how you use, and what you pay for, energy in the future. That’s why we’ve called our project ‘The Power in Your Hands’.
As part of this trial we are accessing and analysing open data from the low voltage substation in Meavy Way in Greenlands. We’re working with local residents and St. Peter’s School to understand what this data means about current and future energy use and behaviour.
Access to open data on local electricity networks should make energy more democratic and benefit you. We’ll be working to see how.
Take part in our Householders Survey here’s a link to it online. It will take between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.
Check out out the peaks and dips in energy demand and other data we’re producing HERE, and let us know what you think. We’re also developing an App you can use from your smart phone.
Sign up to receive email updates on progress and local events
We’d also like to hear from you if you are generating and/or storing your own energy or have an electric vehicle.
Get in touch … call 0800-233-5414, email hello@tamarenergycommunity.com or let us know your details via our Contact Form.
You can download The Power in Your Hands newsletters here:
August 2019 Power in your hands Newsletter Aug 19 (download pdf) View in web browser
May 2019 The Power in Your Hands May 19 newsletter (download pdf)
The Power in Your Hands is part of a project called OpenLV which is making local electricity data openly available for the first time ever. The Greenlands area of Tavistock is one of seven neighbourhoods involved across the S.West, S.Wales and the Midlands.
Your substation is where electricity is turned from a high voltage dangerous current to the low voltage electricity you use at home. Thanks to a piece of kit called an LV-CAP™ we will be able to learn more about electricity use in the Greenlands neighbourhood and work together to change our energy use habits, maybe even saving on our bills as we go!
Knowing about our local electricity use means we can try to avoid overloading our substation and in the future, it might even be possible to have electricity tariffs which offer cheaper energy at off-peak times of day.
This video will explain more about OpenLV.
Going forward, energy companies will be looking at introducing tariffs with different rates at different times of the day.
You can track the carbon intensity of our energy networks here:
https://carbontracer.westernpower.co.uk/ (Local region)
https://carbonintensity.org.uk (National and S. West England)
Business and community competition winners have been selected as part of a ground breaking trial that will provide access to open data on local electricity networks. The winning innovation ideas could have a real impact on the future of local networks while providing benefits to a wide range of users.
The OpenLV project selected 17 applications from the business and academic arena as well as 7 successful applications, including Tamar Energy Community, from community organisations. All 24 projects will now progress to the next stage, in most cases developing apps to access data from the networks.
OpenLV, a Network Innovation Competition project led by Western Power Distribution and EA Technology, is opening up live data from local electricity networks for the first time.
Examples of community projects that have been successful in being approved for OpenLV trials include apps that will:
Some examples of business and academic projects that are due to access data through OpenLV are as follows:
Mark Dale, Innovation Project Manager at Western Power Distribution, comments: “Having greater visibility of local network power flows will give Network Operators the confidence to accept greater numbers of Low Carbon Technologies such as Electric Vehicle charge points and Distributed Generation. OpenLV, with the LV-CAP™ platform, will open up information about the capacity of local networks and create this visibility for WPD as well as for the successful participants.”
Richard Potter, EA Technology’s OpenLV Project Manager, adds: “When we opened the competition for businesses and communities to submit ideas for using open, live electricity data, we didn’t know what response to expect, so I’m delighted that we’ve had so many applications, and so many good ideas to progress to the trial stage.
“Ultimately, the technology being trialled by OpenLV is expected to be adopted in substations throughout Britain, providing useful data to a wide range of sectors including electric vehicle charging companies, renewable energy developers, property developers, facilities managers, smart city planners, operators of private energy networks, the electricity industry itself, and of course local communities.”
Find out more at www.openlv.net. To watch a short video that explains the OpenLV project visit: www.openlv.net/resources.
About OpenLV
The OpenLV Project is trialling an open software platform in electricity substations that can monitor substation performance and electricity demand. The LV-CAP™ platform is designed to integrate with third party products to enable network control and automation, and increased customer participation in network management. The platform will host applications provided by a diverse set of developers, such as community groups, businesses and universities, providing a variety of services to network operators, communities and the wider industry.
As part of the OpenLV project, the software will be installed in 80 Low Voltage (LV) distribution substations located in Western Power Distribution’s (WPD’s) licence areas – the Midlands, the South West and South Wales. The software could ultimately be deployed across the electricity network.
The project will use three approaches to demonstrate the platform’s ability to provide benefits to the network owner, customers and service providers.
OpenLV Partners
EA Technology
EA Technology is an employee-owned organisation offering high-tech instruments, software, electrical services and technical consultancy to the operators of power networks around the world. Through its Strategy & Interventions division it delivers innovative end-to-end solutions to facilitate the introduction of low carbon technologies to future proof electricity networks, resulting in lower cost connections, prompt adoption and reduced risk to business.
Western Power Distribution
Western Power Distribution is the company responsible for electricity distribution in the Midlands, South West and Wales. Its business serves over 7.8 million customers and it employs over 6,000 members of staff to ensure the highest quality of service. Western Power Distribution is regulated by Ofgem (the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets) and it is very proud to have been awarded the Government’s Charter Mark, now known as the Customer Service Excellence award, since 1992.
OpenLV project suppliers are Nortech, Lucy Electric GridKey, CSE and Regen.
Great to be included in the Regen Communities & Devon County Council report highlighting the importance of Community Energy in Devon.
Devon Community Energy organisations have installed 12.3 MW of Renewable Energy through 62 projects in Devon. One of the many positive impacts highlighted in the report available here.
Check out Tamar Energy Community (TEC) Community Solar here.
Look at the huge CO2 equivalent savings made by Devon Community Energy organisations from generating green energy through renewables!
Through energy advice, energy efficiency measures and tariff switching, Devon Community Energy organisations are tackling fuel poverty.
Partnerships and connections with other organisations enable Devon Community Energy to go further so that more people benefit.
The number of Devon Community Energy organisations has increased to 23. Collectively they employ 33 FTE staff have 297 volunteers and 3457 members.
Devon Community Energy organisations collectively have raised £14.1 million to fund their Community Energy projects.
Here are the key success factors highlighted by Devon Community Energy organisations.
A lack of viable business models due to reduction in FIT was the most common reasons causing some Devon Community Energy projects to stall.
Devon has more Community Energy organisations than anywhere else in England … find out why here …
Community Energy in Devon has created 33 FTE, jobs, raised £14 million & generated enough clean green energy for 3423 homes in 2017.