News

On Saturday we have organised a guided walk along the route of the hydro, so that you can have a look at where the intake will be built, where the pipeline will be laid, and where the turbine house will be located. If you are interested, meet at the Owain Glyndwr Hotel at 11am on Saturday 9th May, and the Directors will lead a walk up to the reservoir.

Wear heavy shoes and the route will be quite steep. There will be a few cars that can take a small number of people up to the reservoir by road.

The walk should take no more than a couple of hours. No need to book, just turn up, but if you have any questions phone 01743 277119 or email info@corwenelectricity.org.uk

The share offer was officially launched yesterday – you can now download the share offer from our website www.corwenelectricity.org.uk. Please contact us with any questions either via the website on info@corwenelectricity.org.uk or by phone 01743 277119

The share offer for the hydro scheme will be launched on 19th Feb at 7.30 pm in the Sports pavilion, Corwen. Come along to find out more about how you can own a share in this exciting community scheme.

All the NRW licences for the scheme at Corwen have now been obtained.

We obtained planning permission in September, however, since then, the location where the turbine house at the bottom was to go has become unavailable and we have had to alter the location of the turbine house. This does not significantly affect the yield or cost of the scheme, but does mean that the planning permission needs to be re-submitted so that it accurately reflects how the scheme will be built.

From our discussion with the planning officers, there is little question that this amendment will be accepted by the planners. The only consequence is that it has meant that we do not have planning permission of the actual final design by the 31st December. This was the date that we needed to submit an application to OFGEM  (“preliminary accreditation”) in order to lock into the current feed in tariff.

We have submitted an application to OFGEM with the existing planning permission. OFGEM state in their guidance that preliminary accreditation would be invalid if the “site” is different between the final application and the planning application submitted with the preliminary accreditation. OFGEM do not give examples of what constitutes “different” and leave this to individual site by site assessment.

We therefore do not know at present whether our submission for preliminary accreditation will remain valid. We have flagged this change of planning permission up with OFGEM and await their decision. If they do decide that the scheme is “different” this would mean that we would have to accept the post 31 March 2015 FIT tariff. Our calculations indicate that the scheme is still viable under the reduced tariff but the amount of community fund would have to be smaller.

The final component before we can build is to complete all the leases. We have funding from Ynni’r Fro to pay or all legal costs, and are already in detailed discussions with all landowners and we hope to get these signed, and confirmation from OFGEM on the FIT tariff, by the end of January. We will then aim to run a share offer for the construction costs during February and March.

We are delighted to announce that the scheme has just had its application for planning permission approved (September 2014). This is a major step forward in progress. Work on obtaining the abstraction licence and all landowner permits is still ongoing.

Lib Dem Regional AM Aled Roberts visited the scheme recently to give his support. “As energy becomes more expensive we must use all the natural resources such as solar and water to develop local power generation. The Corwen scheme is a good example of what could be done throughout North Wales with the sort of local involvement and professional advice that is in evidence here. I urge more local people to get involved by backing the pioneer share offer so that the co-operative can get all the permissions they need this year so that construction can start in 2015 with the aim of completing the building phase in 2016.”

You are invited to an open public meeting, to hear about plans to develop a community hydro scheme in Corwen
The meeting will be in The Pavilion on 15th October at 7pm
We will be covering the work has been done so far and what remains to be done. We will also be describing how the scheme would operate as a co-operative and how you could become a member.
The scheme would be built on the Nant Cawrddu. The project is being set up as a co operative, the capital will be raised by selling local shares, and surplus profit will be put into a community fund.
A planning application has been submitted, and a lot of work has already been done to obtain all the permissions that are needed if the scheme is to go ahead. A lot more work still remains to be done.

Corwen Electricity Co-operative are delighted to launch their pioneer share offer. This is to raise money needed to complete the development phase of the project to obtain planning permission, the abstraction licence and to put in place the necessary leases and easements.

By buying shares in the scheme, you will become a member of the coop. You will also be paid interest on your share and will get the capital returned to you by the end of 20 years.

Once the development work is complete, there will be another opportunity to buy shares in the second stage which will be raising money for the main construction.

You can find all the details of the share offer in the Share Offer Document in the download section of the website.