A scheme to take a Shropshire solar farm into community ownership is hitting the big screen – with a special video being shown in partnership with two Shropshire cinemas.
A short video film promoting the Twemlows solar farm share offer is being shown amongst the adverts at both the Orbit Cinema in Wellington and the Festival Drayton Centre in Market Drayton.
Both are community owned and run, a perfect fit for the Community Benefit Society Shropshire and Telford Community Energy which is behind the share offer.
STCE has already provided a grant towards solar PV at the Festival Drayton Centre and its share offer has raised more than £200,000 over the last two months. For every pound raised in the share offer STCE is looking to deliver around six pounds or more in community benefit funds.
Dave Green, of STCE, said he hoped the cinema broadcasts would help the offer reach a new audience.
“We are delighted that both the Orbit and Festival Drayton Centre are showing the video, which explains some of the benefits of the share offer and our partnership with a number of other similar projects around the country in an organisation called Community Energy Together.
“The Twemlows offer is a win-win for investors and the community. It offers a target return of six per cent on investment, represents the perfect opportunity to invest in environmentally responsible energy generation which will help fight climate change and means we can generate lots more funding for community projects around the county.
“By bringing Twemlows into community ownership, we think we will be able to distribute around £4.5million in community benefit over the next 18 years whilst saving more than 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.”
Twemlows, which began operating in 2016, is a 10MW solar farm on the edge of Whitchurch which can power the equivalent of 3,400 homes.
STCE is one of five community energy groups from across England and Wales to have joined forces under the Community Energy Together banner to launch share offers for a total of seven operational solar farms in the first scheme of its kind in the UK.
Overall, the Community Energy Together programme will save a combined 317,000 tonnes of CO2 over the lifetimes of the solar farms, which have a collective capacity of 36MW – enough to power the equivalent of 12,750 homes.
Bringing the seven solar farms into community ownership will increase the capacity of community owned solar energy in England and Wales by approximately 20 per cent. Over the projects’ lifetime it will generate a collective community benefit fund of around £20 million to support local social and environmental projects and develop new community renewable projects.
