Decision details

The Green Investment & Jobs Fund (£1m) was approved by Council in February 2014, as ‘Investment of a policy loan in local renewable energy projects to further a range of Council policy objectives, whilst generating a source of income for the Council and contributing to the creation of ‘green’ jobs.’

The Cabinet Members agree to the Council making a policy loan of £130,000 from the Green Investment & Jobs Fund to Bath & West Community Energy’s Bathampton Old Mill Hotel Hydro project.

The £1million Green Investment & Jobs Fund was set up in February 2014 to enable policy loans to local renewable energy projects in order to help to get ‘community energy’ off the ground in B&NES, helping to meet our carbon reduction and community resilience policy objectives by overcoming a market barrier whereby banks will not lend sufficiently small amounts for single schemes, whilst also generating income for the Council and contributing to the local Community Energy Fund.

The first investment was for £500k to Bath & West Community Energy’s Wilmington Farm Solar Array project in 2014. The policy rationale for this second proposed investment is the same as for Wilmington, which is that there is still a gap in the market for finance at this scale for community energy projects and that profits from the project will be invested in the Bath & West Community Energy Fund for reinvestment in community projects in the B&NES area. 

The Bath & West Community Energy Fund has so far provided a grant pot of £65k over the 2014-16 period which has been dispersed to 18 diverse community projects such as: installation of energy efficiency measures at Freshford Community Association building, Percy Community Centre, Chew Magna Old School Room  and SWALLOW; installation of solar panels at St Saviour’s Infant School; funding of a worker at Time Bank Plus to deliver food growing training; an Age UK project to support  older people experiencing fuel poverty, and a Social Publishing Project with low income households to tackle fuel poverty.

The Bath & West Community Energy model also includes Community Share Offers, which means that local people have the opportunity to invest relatively small sums in local energy schemes with a good return on investment.  They are also committed to working with local businesses. Combined, this means that the economic benefits of the renewable energy projects are all retained locally.

The proposed policy loan also supports delivery of the Council’s Core Strategy (Policy CP3, see Section 4), and the delivery of the Council’s commitments in its Environmental Sustainability Strategy.

A number of other options were considered in relation to the remaining £500k in the Green Investment and Jobs Fund capital line item. These were discussed in December 2015 where the Bathampton Hydro was selected as the preferred option.  The other options included:

Policy loan investment into Stowey Farm Solar – a 250kW small ground mounted solar array at Stowey Farm, near Bishop Sutton. Investment in a hydro project was considered to offer a more a balanced portfolio than investment in a second solar project at this time.

Re-finance BWCE’s existing solar PV roof mounted projects on B&NES schools at a lower rate (in order to increase the amount of funding flowing into the community fund). It was felt that this option offered insufficient additionality.

Do nothing and remove £500k from budget or roll over to FY 2016-17. This option was not preferred.