Tuesday 30 August 2011

Barclays launches £100m renewables fund for farmers

Brookland Farm, Herefordhsire
(Photo Ben Whittle)
Along with the partnership between Siemens and the Carbon Trust it seems that private finance for renewables is really beginning to take off.

Barclays has launched a £100m renewables fund aimed at the farming sector.  It focuses on electricity production from solar, wind and hydro technologies, leaving the Government's publicly Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) to incentivise the production of renewable heat from September 30th this year.

The scheme is expected to fund around 100 projects ranging in value between £250,000 and £700,000.  The fund managers anticipate that most projects will be solar (photovoltaic) or wind.

Clearly the launch of this fund is more good news for renewable energy in the UK. However, traditional constraints such as planning and landscape impact remain and not everyone will be able to adopt these technologies.

Many of the land and property owners we have spoken to have already considered solar which is unsurprising considering the nature of the technology and the relatively large roof areas associated with agricultural buildings.

But other options do exist.

Given the good access to woodland within the agricultural sector biomass heating is also generating a lot of interest and we are seeing increasing interest in feasibility studies and the RHI, both for commercial and domestic applications.

More details on the Barclays fund can be found on the Guardian and Barclays websites.

If you are considering biomass heating and would like to undertake a feasibility study please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

Matthew Morris
Woodfuel Development Manager
Kent Downs AONB
01303 815 171

Monday 15 August 2011

Evening briefing seminars: Presentations

The presentations from the recent briefing sessions can be read or downloaded via Scribd using the following links:

Matthew Woodcock - Forestry Commission: Biomass heating examples
http://www.scribd.com/doc/62320782/KDWfP-Biomass-heating-examples

Stewart Boyle: The Renewable Heat Incentive
http://www.scribd.com/doc/62320257/KDWfP-Renewable-Heat-Incentive-overview-and-examples

Matthew Morris: Kent's woodland resource
http://www.scribd.com/doc/62318444/KDWfP-Kent-s-Woodland-Resource

If you have any questions about these presentations, or any other related matter, then please feel free to contact us at the following email address: matthew.morris@kentdowns.org.uk

Welcome to the Kent Downs Woodfuel Pathfinder Blog

The Kent Downs Woodfuel Pathfinder Blog has been set up to provide a temporary repository for information relating to the Pathfinder project.  In particular it will be used to communicate project information, such as the recent evening briefing sessions, as well as general information relating to woodland management, woodfuel and the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) which opens for business on September 30th.

We also want to encourage users of this site to write their own articles as well as stimulate debate by commenting on items.  Articles can be submitted directly to myself (matthew.morris@kentdowns.org.uk).  To comment on an article you will need to use an existing profile recognised by the Google Blogger software or create a new one (this is very easy and only takes a few moments).

To get things started we will create a distribution list using Google Groups, so that we can keep you informed when we post new articles.  Everyone who booked onto the recent evening events using the event web site (Eventbrite) will be added to this group and you will receive notification of this shortly.  If you do not want to be part of this group, either now or any time in the future, just let us know and you will be removed.  Please also email me if you want to ADD anyone.

So, welcome to the blog - we hope you find this site useful.

Matthew Morris
Kent Downs Woodfuel Pathfinder Coordinator
Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)