The Community Renewable Energy Project Award has been won by a Gower-based organisation, Gower Regeneration Ltd.
The award, sponsored by The Renewable Energy Association, is given to: ‘The most commendable sustainable electricity generation project undertaken by a community group across Wales and England.’ The Community Energy Awards ceremony hosted at London’s Living Room City Hall on Wednesday 1st November brought together renewable energy professionals and enthusiasts from all over the UK for an evening to celebrate exciting innovations, projects and people working tirelessly in the community energy sector. Gower Regeneration’s project is Wales’s first community-owned solar farm. It has 3,658 solar panels and is sited on top of an old coal mine and next to a school. Aside from producing enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 300 homes, the project will reinvest all its profits, estimated to be over £500k through the 30 year life of the project, into supporting the development of other eco-projects and resources for education about sustainable development. With over 400 hundred people signed up as members over £775,000 has been raised so far. The share offer which projects a 5% annual return to investors closes on Wednesday 8th November, so if you interested in becoming part of a project that will make a positive difference and that projects to pay you a decent return, you will need to act quickly by visiting the following website: https://www.ethex.org.uk/GowerRegeneration Ant Flanagan, one of the founder directors of Gower Regeneration, said: “It is a great privilege to win such a prestigious award and go into the Community Energy Hall of Fame alongside other fantastic projects. Looking back it is really incredible at the amount of different people and organisations that have helped make this project happen. We have had such a high level of commitment from so many of the project partners. I can’t list them all but I really think I ought to give a special mention to Gower Power Co-op, Gower Heritage Centre, Juno Energy, the Energy Savings Trust, Finance Wales and Robert Owen Community Finance, for being so instrumental in the project’s completion let alone a national award! And of course, a massive thank you to the hundreds of individuals that have applied for community shares.”