Brighton Energy Coops huge new solar system – one of two installed in 2014 at Shoreham Port
Hi folks,
Well, the year is nearly at an end so I thought I’d give you an update on how Brighton Energy Coop’s solar PV systems have been performing to date.
You may recall that earlier in the year we raised £480,000 to install several thousand solar panels at Shoreham Port – see here for all our projects to date.
The systems installed in 2012 (St George’s Church, City Coast Church and Hove Enterprise Centre) have generated an impressive 128,000KwH of electricity this year – enough to boil the kettle 7.5 million times. That’s a great acheivement, saving 60 tonnes of CO2 on the year.
This number is a little bit down on 2013 – 132,000kwh, largely due to a problem with an inverter at City Coast Church.
Both 2013 and 2014 outputs are higher than the estimate we made in 2012 when predicting how the system would operate, so that’s great news going forward.
Meanwhile, down at Shoreham Port our systems are also pumping out clean, green energy. These systems have not yet been operating for a year so it’s difficult to compare with our 2012 arrays, but Shed 10 has generated just over 200,000kWh in 2014, while Shed 3a has produced 76,000kWh.
The total output for 2014, therefore, is 404,000kWh of electricity, saving 244 tonnes of CO2. That’s the equivalent of more than 200 London to New York flights
We have have several new projects in the pipeline for 2015, and expect to more than double our size.
We are also looking to deepen membership involvement with our organisation, and with this in mind we are setting up working groups on the topics below. If you’re interested in joining one (or more) of these groups fill in the form here and we’ll be in touch .
Many thanks to those of you who’ve already signed up: I’ll be in contact in early January to organise some dates.
In the meantime, have a very happy Christmas – and I look forward to keeping your informed about our exciting new year.
Best
Will
BEC
BEC working groups for 2015
Communications working group
BEC has nearly 1500 people on its mailing list, more than 700 likes on our Facebook group and more than 1000 followers on Twitter. We’d like some steer on what should be said using these: should we promote anti-fracking messages, for example, renewable energy news, or simply stuff relating to BEC? This working group aims to help frame our communications strategy.
Strategy working group
Where do we want to go as an organisation? At present BEC develops new renewable projects, which are then funded by the local community via BEC shares. Do we want to do more than that? How would that work? A working group to advise on the wider ambitions of the organisation.
New technologies working group
Renewable energy is not just about solar. There are other technological opportunities out there – but understanding the complexities involved is preventing us from developing them. A working group, therefore, to explore non-solar opportunities for BEC and how we might explore them.
