Benefits outweigh the problems

As the 4CG director chosen by shareholders to develop local renewable energy projects I have also become a director in Awel Deg. This is because Awel Deg not only share the same community ownership structure as 4CG but share the same aims to develop the local economy sustainably to benefit local businesses and individuals rather than finance and opportunity leaving the area.

As there have been several significant studies on the effect of windfarms on tourism and the local economy (Welsh Development Agency plus studies in Devon and Cumbria) all finding insignificant effect and as the Ferwig turbine is not a windfarm but a single machine there is very little chance that any economic damage will occur and in fact there is a good chance that eco-tourism from more monied visitors will improve the local tourism sector. This is because the opportunities to site a local community owned wind turbine returning significant gain back to the local community are very rare.

This rarity will generate news stories and marketing for the Cardigan area as a destination where local people have created something sustainable and special, well worth visiting and hopefully also attracting incoming investment in jobs from forward looking companies who feel that they could benefit from the ‘brand’ of such a forward looking sustainable area. Why rare?, not only must all the stringent technical constraints be overcome but the site must be windy to generate good levels of renewable power and income and most importantly, there must be a partnering landowner willing to rent his land for a fraction of what could be earned from developing the turbine themselves.

The UK needs new renewable energy generation badly as recently confirmed by Ed Davy the Secretary of State for the relevant Westminster ministry and all compliant sites will be seriously considered for wind generation. If the local community cannot achieve their own wind development , commercial developers will step in with next to no gain for local people and yet again money and opportunity will leave the area.

In a nutshell, the proposed turbine in Ferwig has been proven in technical studies to comply with all of the technical constraints required to be overcome by planning as it is sited to be further from housing than required to limit noise to a nationally accepted level, does not interrupt radar from Aberporth, is not on a recognised significant bird migratory route, complies with Welsh Assembly policy to develop Welsh wind energy resource and most importantly will generate approximately 420,000 per year in Feed in Tariff and energy sales income.

It is possible to ‘book’ your Feed in Tariff rate the day after planning approval has been given to maintain this income against future political changes and if sufficient local community enterprise shareholders can be found to benefit from the likely 5% tax free return on shares to raise the 1.25M project cost, this income is guaranteed by the government for 20 years.

This means that the project will generate over 8 million to benefit the local economy in the form of good local investments, rent for a local farmer, jobs in turbine maintenance and in distribution of the 5million ‘profit’ all to be spent on local projects chosen by our community shareholders.More information about the program is available on the web site at scfwindturbine.com.