Hay Energy Assembly - Part One

 Last year, at about this time, there was a citizen's assembly in the Swan to talk about food security in the Hay area, and lots of good ideas came out of that.  There was a bit of a delay in implementing some of those ideas, simply because it was too much work for the volunteers who were trying to get it going, but they have now been able to access funding for help from paid staff, so now things are starting to happen behind the scenes.

So it was time for the second of the three planned assemblies - this time on Energy.  The idea is that Hay could set up its own energy company to generate renewable energy for the local area.

We were shown a short film from the Orkneys, where one island now runs entirely on renewable energy, which also brings in income to improve life for the islanders.  Wind power goes into the National Grid (there is a power line to the mainland) and is also used to store energy in the form of hydrogen, which heats the school.  They're planning to move into tidal power next.

Then we had a speaker from Ynni Teg Cyf, Jonathan Townend, who talked about community energy.  There are thirty or forty groups around Wales which are already generating energy for their local communities in a variety of ways, and the technology is improving so fast it's hard to keep up with it!

He did say that he was a bit worried on his way up to Hay from South Wales because of the lack of charging points for his electric car, but Hay has several charging points, so he would be able to get back home.  That's one of the infrastructure problems that needs to be addressed nationally.

His own group has a wind turbine and a solar array - though half of that blew away in recent gales and hasn't been replaced yet!  Even so, they have an annual turnover of about £400k - this is variable because of the variation in wind and solar output and the variable price of electricity wholesale.

As Hay is on the edge of a National Park, it is difficult to get planning permission for a wind turbine, but Hay is in a hilly area, and micro-hydro power is good in the smaller streams - though here there is the issue of getting extraction licenses for the water (even if it comes out and goes straight back in again!).

Solar panels are easy to set up, especially if a company can get enough people with suitable rooftops involved to install the panels - though there is the problem of rainy and cloudy days to consider.

Then there's the legal position that has to be considered - there are certain statutory requirements that have to be met, and there's the matter of how the company gets paid for the energy it is supplying.

There is help out there, though, from Community Energy Wales, the Welsh Government Energy Service, the Development Bank and Ynni Teg, who have a website at www.ynniteg.cymru.