Environment and Sustainability Committee

 

E&S(4)-07-12 paper 3

 

Inquiry into energy policy and planning in Wales – Evidence from Llangattock Green Valleys

 

Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas                                                                                                          

Committee Chairman

Environment and Sustainability Committee

National Assembly for Wales

Cardiff

CF99 1NA                                                                                                                                                         03rd February 2012

 

 

Dear Lord Ellis-Thomas

 

We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Committee's inquiry into Energy Policy and Planning in Wales and provide the views of Llangattock Green Valleys through our model of developing a Carbon Negative Community by 2015.

 

Llangattock Green Valleys and its trading subsidiary of LGV Ventures is a growing community interest company based in the rural Welsh village of Llangattock in the heart of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Llangattock is a relatively small community numbers wise – around 420 homes and some 1,300 residents. But it's spread over two sides of a valley, with the village itself surrounded by four scattered hamlets – a situation that presents both challenges and some unique opportunities.

 

Llangattock Green Valleys started out in 2008 as a loose collection of residents who shared a broad vision of creating a cleaner, greener, more sustainable future for our community. Today that vision is becoming a reality. Many of our members are interested in harnessing our natural local resources – things like water, wind and solar power, along with wood fuel – to reduce our community’s need for fossil fuel and help us all save money. But we’re also keen to explore ways that we can work together to create a richer way of life, from growing and rearing more of our own food locally, to helping people learn new skills and creating local jobs. Our principal objective is to establish Llangattock as a Carbon Negative Community by 2015, ambitious but achievable.

 

By sharing knowledge, forging innovative partnerships and encouraging the whole village to get involved in a range of ambitious projects that are already making a real difference. In November 2009 we won the Welsh heat of the British Gas Green Streets competition. As well as being selected as one of 14 communities to take part in the 15-month Green Streets challenge, we also received over £137,400 worth of funding to help kick-start our plans. Then we went out and secured additional match funding so we could achieve even more. We went on to win the Green Streets challenge in 2011 and secured a further £100,000.

 

Early on we recognised that our eight project streams could be defined as two key drivers in developing our model of a Carbon Negative Community. Community Involvers firstly sees the project streams that involve the community with:

 

·       Community Enhancement (Llangattock Litter Pickers)

Llangattock Litter Pickers have become a beacon for our community – clearing over 920 bags of litter and 258 tyres in and around the community since their first litter pick back in November 2009. Each month they cover some 60 miles of roadside verge, and along the way they’ve ensured their own sustainability by selling scrap metal from fly tipping, securing just under a 82% recycling rate of litter collected and forging a paid-for partnership with the local Beaufort Estate, which is responsible for much of the common land around the community. They have also teamed up with the Brecon Beacons National Park, the Environment Agency and Powys County Council to help clear a massive fly tip from a nearby Site of Special Scientific Interest.

 

·       Transport (Llangattock Biodiesel Club)

Discovering the benefits – and drawbacks – of biodiesel. We set up a biodiesel club in January 2010, working with a small-scale local supplier who made biodiesel from used cooking oil and delivered in 25-litre containers – which suited us perfectly. Membership grew rapidly, and in just 6 months we distributed 11,500 litres of biodiesel, saving 29 tons of carbon emissions. Unfortunately our supplier ceased trading, and bigger suppliers will only deliver in bulk. So for now the club is on hold while we investigate the possibility of installing a bunded tank.

 

·       Woodlands (Llangattock Community Woodland Group)

With the group coming about to promote biodiversity within the local woodlands. Currently managing woods for 2 private landowners and working in partnership with British Waterways to manage small canal side woodland in the village. With a locally sourced fuel coming from the woodlands. The purchase of a firewood processor speeds up the time it takes to cut and splits the wood fuel from the woodlands under management, making the whole process more efficient. While the community wood stores allows the capability of storing and seasoning the wood fuel properly for distribution within the community.

 

·       Allotments (Llangattock Area Community Allotments Society, LACAS)

With their first growing season in 2009, it soon became clear that, even in Wales, rain alone was not enough. Connecting to the mains was expensive and meant ongoing bills, so the group applied for planning permission for a borehole irrigation system powered by solar PV panels to giving them an independent supply of water and electricity. The system went live in March 2011 and is working well. In addition to providing 46 plots (plot holders include the school and a local restaurant), LACAS has planted more than 800 native hedging whips and established a community orchard featuring local fruit varieties. The society has also set up a bee club and reinstated the annual summer show, which has been missing from the community for some years. Improved access to the allotment with the installation of a grasscrete driveway and car park allowing disabled access is now in place with raised beds to meet community members needs who are not able to tender an allotment at ground level will be forthcoming with the plots being self irrigated.

 

·       Residential

With the foundations laid by British Gas’s Green Streets project which brought about 38 homes becoming more energy efficient, starting with energy surveys and following this up with energy efficiency improvements ranging from energy monitors, heat-reflecting radiator panels to new central heating boilers and wood stoves installed into the homes of residents. 12 homes chose to install solar PV panels (where the community had 0 at the start of 2010) with a 34 kW Biomass boiler with solar thermal back up.

 

Learning from the Green Street’s project, Reach For The Renewables came to market offering a stable of renewable technologies and energy efficient measures. Operated under licence, Llangattock Green Valleys is now reaching beyond Llangattock with the Reach For The Renewables offering whilst providing revenue for Llangattock Green Valleys.

 

Llangattock Green Valleys has been successful in securing £108,000 of funding from DECC’s Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF) coupled with match funding. We will deliver energy efficiency measures that will include loft and cavity wall insulation, energy monitors and heat reflecting radiator panels in tandem with voltage optimisation to 123 properties in the community by the end of March 2012. Reaching out to over 30% of the properties in the community is testament to Llangattock Green Valleys ambition and drive to bring about the much needed change. Demonstrating that the community is beginning on mass to get behind the drive and ambition that Llangattock Green Valleys has laid before it.

 

We will use the success of the LEAF project to reach out to an even greater number of properties in the community in 2012 with targeted projects that will see properties that have been involved in previous projects being offered the opportunity in benefiting from bulk buying opportunities through the Reach For The Renewables offering.

 

We use the word involvement not engage or engagement. Engagement (a term commonly used by government and corporates) is in our eyes a term that only promotes a one way relationship where as involvement sends a clear message to the community that we ask them to believe not just in our ability at Llangattock Green Valleys to bring about the much needed change but in theirs.

 

Community Involver project streams are the key drivers in restoring a sense pride and well being back within the community. Showing community members that pointing the fingers to organisations such as community/town councils, local and central government is no longer the way to bring about the change that is needed in communities but to look at themselves in bringing about the change not only for themselves but for the community they live within.

 

The Community Involvers are reliant in the initial years from grant based funding but through our Community Asset Builder project streams the reliance is broken in the medium to long term. Community Asset Builder project streams consist of:

 

Made our infant & primary school a warmer, more energy-efficient building, with better insulation (cavity wall and loft) and a 4kW solar PV system installed in January 2011. These panels should generate around £1,500 extra income a year for the school, along with electricity it can use during the school day – a total benefit worth around £2,000 to the school each year.  As a direct result of the Green Streets improvements, Powys County Council has in the summer holidays of 2011 installed new sensor-controlled low-energy lighting at the school and have replaced the school’s original 1977 air blown old heating system for a gas condensing boiler with new radiators with heat reflecting panels throughout the school supported with web based control and monitoring system. Aluminium framed double glazing windows and doors have also been installed at the school as well. We’ve secured planning permission to add an additional 12.42kW of solar PV panels - enabling the school to generate a significant amount of its daily electricity requirement, and making it even more energy efficient. With British Gas providing 50 volunteers from their Cardiff Call Centre to paint classrooms and cloakrooms at the school and purchased 10 new computers for the school as part of their community engagement programme.

 

Under the LEAF project we will be bring about a £11,000 voltage optimisation unit for the school and attached community hall along with energy efficient lighting in the main hall of the school with a feasibility study looking at the possibility of micro-wind at the school. Reaching out to Crickhowell School with a £28,000 voltage optimisation under the project is testament to Llangattock Green Valleys ambitions of not just bringing about change in the community but beyond.

 

Installed a new 25kW Air Source central heating system in the Community Hall. The scheme replaces an old inefficient electric heating system that cost a lot to run and never worked very well. We have also secured planning permission to install an 11.04kW solar PV scheme on the hall roof to provide some of the electricity the ASHP will require. With a 400mm top up to the loft insulation at the Community Hall given a depth of 450mm, we are assisting the Hall Committee in bringing about a sustainable future for the Community Hall.

 

Under the LEAF Project we will be installing £12,500 of further insulation to the eves in the main hall of the community hall looking to achieve a minimum COP of 1:4 from the Air Source heating system with thermal lining to the curtains adding to the existing measures. Energy efficient lighting will be installed throughout the Community Hall as well.

 

Set the wheels in motion for 5 micro-hydro schemes. Initially, we'd envisaged a single community scheme, but once word got round, several landowners came forward, some of whom have now joined forces to develop more powerful schemes. Together, these 5 schemes will generate over 450MWh electricity a year (enough to power 118 homes) – with 4 of the schemes also generating FITs income for Llangattock Green Valleys. Legal agreements for these schemes are currently with the landowners, after which we’ll be pressing ahead with planning and environmental permitting applications, with the aim of starting groundworks. The four schemes that have a community buy in element have the capability in proving £53,000 of income index lined post debt repayment in year 6 producing a total cash return of £977,000 within the FiTs regime (20 years) for Llangattock Green Valleys.

 

Under the Reach For The Renewables offering we are expanding into a range of renewable technologies that will give us a balanced portfolio of renewable technologies over the medium to long term.

 

Funded an in-depth feasibility study into a proposed Anaerobic Digestion (AD) facility, which will be developed in partnership with The Glanusk Estate, one of our major local landowners. Designed to run largely on grass cuttings, with the addition of some green maize, glycerine and slurry. Brining about the delivery of 254m3 of Biomethane directly injected into the gas grid every hour.

 

We are now proceeding into the Working-Up Stage with the AD facility which will bring us one step closer to brining online one of the first biomethane ADs in Wales with an investment of over £3.2 million pounds needed it goes to show the commitment of both Llangattock Green Valleys along with our partners, The Glanusk Estate in building a strong platform for sustainable development here in Llangattock. In the long-term this scheme would also provide Llangattock Green Valleys with a sustainable income having secured a 30% equity stake.

 

Developing a community scale energy generation project is the keystone to developing Carbon Negative Community models. It is the project that brings about significant carbon savings but the project that is the cash cow that breaks the reliance of the grants system. With projected gross annual income of £1.3 million, Llangattock Green Valleys stake allows it to further develop not only its model but assist fledging community energy organisations coming through with the much needed early assistance to realise their ambitions.

 

Developing a Carbon Negative Community by 2015 must be built on a platform of community asset building where sustainable development takes place without the long term reliance of grant funding which must be broken if our model is too reach its full potential. Whilst grants are a good way of bringing about the catalyst to the much needed change within communities they must not be seen as the basis to proceed through the medium to long term in building a sustainable business model.

 

Sustained activity, early infrastructure deployment and stakeholder buy in/involvement is fundamental if the reliance of the grant culture is to be broken. Llangattock Green Valleys has set a goal of being non grant dependant by the end of 2013 and we are confident we will achieve this.

 

Through our recently incorporated trading subsidiary of LGV Ventures CIC (where Llangattock Green Valleys CIC is sole shareholder) we will see the equity holdings in the micro hydro schemes, anaerobic digester, solar PV and all other tradable activities being held within this trading subsidiary of Llangattock Green Valleys.

 

Stakeholder involvement is key to delivering our goal of a Carbon Negative Community by 2015. We cannot bring about the goal on our own and look to our stakeholders to “walk together” with us in achieving the goal of a Carbon Negative Community by 2015. Since the inception of Llangattock Green Valleys it has been and continues to be not acceptable for stakeholders to sit on the sidelines with encouragement provided for active involvement in the development of our model.

 

We are of the firm belief that our destiny is not being written for us but by us. Together we can make Llangattock and the surrounding area an area that can inspire many more communities in Wales to bring about the much needed change and begin to believe that the impossible is possible. Llangattock has come together with a common purpose. It’s not just the numbers that are so inspiring but it’s the people behind these numbers. These people have led us to believe that when it comes to what is wrong in our community, the community members are not the problem but the answer.

 

A growing number within the community are now becoming confident in their belief not content to settle for the community as it is and who have the courage to remake the community as it should be.

 

Llangattock Green Valleys is clearly demonstrating that something better awaits us if we have the courage to work for it, reach for it and to fight for it.

 

Welcome to Llangattock Green Valleys, welcome to a fresh and deliverable approach to making a Welsh rural community sustainable and carbon negative.

 

But why stop there?

Wales has a government that is progressive on the environment, sustainable development and renewable energy fronts. We are fortunate to have such a government in Wales. With Llangattock Green Valleys developing a good working relationship this key stakeholder and one we will look to strengthen going forward.

 

We are on the cusp of seeing the backbone of a framework being developed here in Wales through the soon to be launched Community Energy Wales. Wales lacks the framework to allow progressive community energy organisations like Llangattock Green Valleys to mentor fledging organisation coming through the ranks.

 

The Welsh Government must play a key role through partnership with Community Energy Wales in breaking the barriers that are set before us in Community Energy. Barriers such as planning, environmental permitting and state aid related issues to name but a few. Allowing the fledging community groups to be progressive in the knowledge that through on organisation like Community Energy Wales the path in front of them will not be as challenging as the one faced by Llangattock Green Valleys and other Community Energy groups previously.

 

Whilst Llangattock Green Valleys welcomes programmes such as the Ynni’r Fro funding programme which we have benefited from by over £34,000 of funding already with us accessing a commercial loan in the comings months to develop our AD scheme through the working up stage. It must be said that the funding programme has been beset with issues mainly focused around state aid issues with the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) not aiding matters. Where Ynni’r Fro was envisaged at conception to break down barriers for community scale energy generation schemes it has actually created more barriers. But we must go on record and pay particular thanks to Welsh Government officials whom have and continue to overcome the bureaucracy.

 

The Welsh Government must play a pivotal role in instilling through local authority and community/town councils that developing a collaborative approach with Community Energy groups is the way forward. Llangattock Green Valleys experiences of local authority (namely Powys County Council) have been such that quite frankly if common place amongst local authority gives us grave concern if we are to achieve to the potential of Community Energy across Wales. 

 

Community Energy must if it is to fully realise its potential be more commercially driven operating on business principles and discipline. Solely relying on ethical practices is one that will not allow the sector to be taken seriously by Government and as a sector must sell itself to Government in the belief that it can provide a scale that is capable of delivering a significant impact to Government policy targets that will command the support and confidence from Government that Community Energy is a sector that is one worth partnering up with.

 

We must be very wary of the relationships that the Community Energy sector builds with the big six energy companies. Whilst they must play a part in the development of Community Energy we must be mindful that we they must recognise that it will not all be on their terms. Given Llangattock Green Valleys experiences of one of the big six energy companies, namely British Gas.

 

Community Energy organisations must not fall into the trap that can be set before them of partnering up with one of the big six energy companies where their installations for certain renewable energy technologies costs are such that they take away wealth creation opportunities for Community Energy due to the need not only to service their obligations towards their shareholders but also their high cost base which is reflected in their price per kW installed.

 

The big six energy companies talk of building trust again with their customers and communities but this must not be at the cost of wealth creation opportunities for Community Energy groups nor sacrifice the trust built up with the communities by the Community Energy organisation.

 

Attractive lending terms by big six energy companies to Community Energy organisations are soon lost with inflated costs for the installation of renewable energy technologies where the Community Energy organisation is tied to the big six energy company for the installation of the technologies in order to access the lending. Community Energy must mindful and wary that it does not become the haven for the big six energy companies to restore their trust in their customers and the communities they serve.

 

The challenge that is before us in communities commands a response that must be one that not only rises to the challenge but leaves a lasting legacy built on sound business principles and discipline to allow the next generation to take the baton from us and take it to an even greater level than the one we will hand over to them.

 

We know that within communities there is an abundance of skills, knowledge, and experience and above all else the motivation, drive and ambition that is far greater than any government, corporate or NGO. When you know that your community can and is able to bring about the much needed change that is needed and the belief in the knowledge that there is a better way forward there is only one outcome.

 

Improving the capability of community leadership, increasing community involvement and support, building organisational capability and developing effective partnerships are key elements to the success of not only Llangattock Green Valleys but the Community Energy sector. But this must be seen within the Community Energy sector as key areas to development of the sector if it is to realise its ambitions and achieve its true potential.

 

Developing models that deliver Carbon Neutral/Negative Communities by 2025 or 2050 will come too late. The Community Energy sector must set its sights and ambitions on achieving the much needed response to the challenges set before it in the next 5-10 years.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Michael Butterfield

Director, Llangattock Green Valleys CIC & LGV Ventures CIC