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Community Benefits

Community Benefits

The Green Company is committed to ensure that the local communities near our solar farms and wind mills benefit as a result our work. As well as generating green energy to help meet local renewable energy targets, The Green Company strongly believes that we should involve and help the local area.
 
During our planning process, we are keen to engage with local companies so we can assess the benefits of using local resources during the construction and on-going maintenance processes.
 
We are also in the process of establishing a local Community Trust, where by the Green Company commit to provide an annual funding contribution of £500 per hectare of deployed solar PV system, which will be available via a grant application scheme to any local community group or publicly funded organization which operates with 2 miles of our installation. We have also committed to index link this contribution to the fund, in line with the Retail Price Index.
 
The Trust will establish a simple application process whereby grants of up to £2000 per application will be awarded.
 
As an alternative option, The Green Company will also consider gifting a 4kW PV system which would be installed on a local public building. This would create up to £2,000 pa linked to the Retail Price Index in Feed in Tariff income and The Green Company would then require the local body to distribute the these fund to other to other local community projects, while the building benefited from the free energy the system produces.

 
Renewable Energy - The Basics


“I’m no longer sceptical…..climate change is the major challenge facing the world.”
Sir David Attenborough

"Britain faces 'oil crunch' within five years", Richard Branson and other business leaders warn it could be more serious than the financial crisis.''UK competitiveness will be hampered unless we can develop viable, affordable and secure long term sources of alternative energy''

Energy Security

The UK consumption of energy and the sourcing of electricity supplies are changing. As our energy consumption increases, our dependency on imports, such as gas from Russia, increases. The UK became a net importer of energy in 2004 and our dependency on imports rose to be 20% of usage 20% in 2006 and 20071. With North Sea oil and gas reserves depleting, this dependence is likely to continue. As global demand for fossil fuels increases, so too does the price, which results in a higher cost for our electricity. 

Solar Farms do not have to purchase fuel and therefore help to keep electricity costs down in high fuel price environments.

Power Stations

Many of the UK's nuclear and coal power stations are old and near the end of thier intended life. The previous government did not start building new ones in time, and as the UK's electricity demands rise, there are risks that generation capacity will not keep up with demand. The UK is now in the situation where there is not time to build new traditional power stations before the old ones are due to be turned off. This could start affecting people across the UK with electricity price increases and potentially rolling brown outs.

Solar farms are the fastest way to deply significant amounts of new power generating capacity across the UK.

Climate Change

The UK has a significant input into global CO2 emissions. When broken down to CO2 emissions per capita, the UK is even more of a significant CO2 emitter when put alongside other countries3.Traditional methods of generating electricity from fossil fuels release harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) which contributes to climate change. Evidence of climate change is being witnessed every day:
• 23 of the 24 warmest years, since records began in 1850, have occurred since 1980
• Sea levels have risen by an average of 3.1mm per year over the period from 1993 to 2003
• The incidence of major floods, the number of wildfires, average wind speeds and the frequency of cyclones around the world have all risen in the past two decades2
 
If we are to address global warming, developed countries such as the UK have to lead and reduce their per capita emissions so that they can encourage the developing world to follow. But the UK is the laggard of Europe, we have missed the 2010 targets and we are not on track to hit our 2020 targets.

Solar Farms help reduce the threat of climate change by generating carbon-free electricity, replacing generation by coal and gas-fired power stations. A single 1 hectare solar farm deployment can prevent the release of over 200,000kg of CO2 per annum.
 
1 BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2008, spectron
2 Source Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, February 2007
3 International Energy Annual 2005, Energy Information Administration
4 White Paper “Our Energy Future – Creating a Low Carbon Economy”, February 2003
5 Digest of United Kingdom Statistics 2008 Table 7A
6 Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable resources, January 2008
7 White Paper “Meeting the Energy Challenge – a White Paper on Energy” May 2007

 
Background

The Green Company is an independent installer and developer of onshore wind and solar farms in the UK.
 
Established in 2006 by its management team who, collectively, have over 60 years experience in the development and financing of a wide range of infrastructure and energy generation technologies. By establishing a supply and installation business, The Green Company has supplied renewable energy solutions to a wide range of Corporate and Public organisations, such as The Body Shop, Scottish Power, The 2012 Olympics Sailing Venue and Orange and as well as a significant client base of private individuals, farmers and landowners across the UK. Our products include 50kW, 100kW and 330kW wind turbines, as well as a wide range of solar panel solutions for the home and commercial markets. We have always focussed on products that make financial sense as well as environmental sense.
 
As The Green Company further develops its business model, it seeks to focus on developing an additional division, where by it established a number of small scale renewable energy projects, typically between one to three wind turbines or between one and fifteen hectares for a solar farm, as they provide greater flexibility in site selection, simpler grid connections, minimal environmental impacts and are less visual intrusive for the surrounding areas.
 
As a renewable energy company, The Green Company genuinely cares about the environment and it does everything it can to minimise its impact on the environment while seeking to assist the UK Government in meeting its future energy and climate change challenges. It is always seeking to ensure that its actions and plans take into account and minimise the impact on the views and needs of local people, animals, birds and natural habitats associated with our developments (whether for our own projects or for those of our clients).

Our management team have successfully undertaken thousands of planning applications, and we are recognized in the industry as driving forward the policies, technical standards and levels of consumer protection
 
The Green Company is a Bristol based company, with regional project teams in Scotland and the Midlands.
 
Our Head Office is located at
   
    The Green Company (Europe) Limited
    13 - 14 Orchard Street
    Bristol
    BS1 5EH
 
    Tel: 0800 0787 243