Unlocking the Power of Community – Energy Fair 2016

01Oct12th October 2016

Unlocking the Power of Community is the theme for our annual Energy Fair on Saturday October 15^thtaking place in Local Matters community space in Elbow Lane, Tavistock, from 10:00 until 15:00.

There’s lots of reasons to come along …

… We’re offering free tea and cake

… Are you concerned about keeping your home warm, about your bills, saving energy? Come and talk to our local volunteers about the small things you can do that can make a difference.

… Find out more about the Community Fundraiser we’ve started with the Utility Warehouse. They offer excellent service and competitive tariffs to suit some households.

… Living in an older home that’s difficult to keep warm? Building a new home? Come and find out more about what others locally have done and how you can get started or be helped along the way.

… Come and talk to Mike Wye –natural building products, The Fell Partnership –energy efficient building, GreenHus – external wall insulation.

… Living in a Bedford Cottage? We’re starting a project to look at how we can keep these homes warmer without spending lots of money. Come and find out more.

… Interested in generating your own power or in renewable heat? Things are changing fast. Come and talk to three of the leading local experts: New Generation Energy, Sungift Energy and ZLC Energy.

… See our Community Solar installations generating! We’re proud of our achievement in getting solar panels owned by the community to support five sites across the area. Our host sites (including Mount Kelly and Abbey Garden Machinery) can reduce their energy costs and be renewable generators. Any surplus is used to support fuel poverty and energy advice locally.

… Talk to Roots to Transition and the team from Tasty Tavy working to transform Tavistock … and pick up some free seeds

… Check up on our Totally Locally Tavistock display

.. And see what we’re doing with Local Matters community space … supporting Transition Tavistock, Tamar Energy Community, Climate Matters and more … a space for you …

If you’d like to help us promote the event you can download a poster here

Want more information? Call or email us at hello@tamarenergycommunity.com or on 07969 569 444.

Community Solar

Installing at Mount Kelly Prep

We’re celebrating the fifth year of our Community Solar investment and generation across the Tamar Valley with an additional 100kW installation. It’s on the roof of the 50m pool of the Mount Kelly Swim Centre.

Our Host Sites

Working with local organisations we’ve installed 425kW of community owned solar PV across six sites.

Click here to see a graph of the latest generation.

Why is Community Solar Important

The installations are owned by our community, and are managed and maintained by Tamar Energy Community (TEC).

Community solar brings many benefits to our community and local economy:

Our host sites benefit from reduced cost electricity. As community generators a proportion of their energy needs are generated locally from renewable sources which is good for our planet, and they can promote the benefits of renewables to their stakeholders. We can also work with them to reduce their energy usage in other ways as well.
Our local community has the opportunity to invest in, and co-own the installation by purchasing community shares, and receive a fair rate of return.
The money which would otherwise have been paid by host sites (for their solar energy) to national and international energy companies is paid to TEC, a community benefit society, and retained in the local economy.
Any surplus from our community solar goes into our Community Energy Fund and is used to alleviate fuel poverty across the area.

Kate Royston, TEC’s Community Solar project developer: “We’re immensely proud that we’ve been able to add to our first community generation projects! It’s been hard work but very worthwhile and we look forward to developing more projects in the future”.

Funding the projects

Our initial portfolio was funded by our local Community Solar Seed Loan investors who loaned us £118,000 to help make sure everything was installed in time and Cornwall’s Low Carbon Society who loaned us £285,000.

Last autumn we launched our Community Solar Share offer to enable TEC to pay back the Low Carbon Society Loan and our Community Solar Seed Loan investors … and ensure wider community ownership. £322,000 was raised in a few weeks, and we’re grateful to our new community investors. You can find out more about our first community solar share offer here.

Making our Community Solar possible

Our Community Solar projects would not have been possible without the help of our valued installers Sungift Energy and ZLC Energy, our legal support from Bright Solicitors, the work of our volunteers, grants from the Devon County Council and Regen Accelerator Programme and importantly our Rural Community Energy Fund Grant of £20,000. This enabled us to work with our consultants from Communities for Renewables and Plymouth Energy Community; and of course our investors.

If you’d like to get more involved with our community solar please email us at hello@tamarenergycommunity.com or call on 07969 569 444.

Dealing with damp

Damp is a serious problem. It’s important to try and find out the cause.

Damp is mainly caused by condensation of water vapour in the air, forming on cold areas on walls and windows.
There are other reasons for damp such as leaky pipes, rain entering the structure either directly or from guttering and drainpipes. This is often called ‘penetration damp’.
‘Rising damp’ results from water rising up from the ground. This is the least common cause.

Download our Dealing with Damp information table for more information. It will help you understand what actions you can take to reduce damp in your home, and related costs.

Moisture in the air is known as ‘humidity’.
You may find it useful to have a humidity meter in the home. You can get these on line. We have simple temperature and humidity meter’s available for £5 at the Town Shop.

Sample Energy Information Generation

Information on energy generation