We are grateful to have had support from the following businesses that have bought shares in our scheme:
• Caplor Energy Limited
• Utility Telematics Ltd
• Herefordshire Citizens Advice Bureaux
• Questhills Ltd
• Robert Owen Community Banking Fund
Caplor Energy Limited www.caplor.co.uk/
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(Caplor are our principal contractor, and were also key in identifying the site and making the project happen.)
Caplor Energy provides renewable energy systems for businesses, communities and homes. Our vision is to create a vibrant and sustainable community so we’re focused on supporting local projects that benefit the people and communities where we are based.
We’ve already allocated over £150,000 to community projects (such as village halls, school buildings and visitor centres) to install solar PV panels at no initial cost; installation costs are simply spread over the length of the Feed-in Tariff scheme.
Caplor Energy adds several additional benefits to local communities:
- Filming of the installation for promotional and educational purposes
- Providing inspirational speakers to events covering energy or climate change; our Managing Director is a visiting fellow at Aston Business School and regularly talks about such issues
- Offering discounted electric car charging points
- Assistance in registering to donate your generation data as part of the Sheffield Solar Microgen Database. This collaboration provides UK solar PV performance data to forge links between industry, society and academia. It heavily relies on data donation from PV owners and operators. The site reports back on system performance so donors can see how well their system is performing compared to others locally and across the country
- Wider engagement with sustainability policy – Caplor proactively help shape policy at local, regional and national levels.
Utility Telematics Ltd http://ut55.com
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Utility Telematics Ltd is located in rural north Herefordshire. The business supplies hardware and software solutions into the electricity transmission, water and telecommunications sectors. With all our clients we seek to build in depth and long term relationships.
One specific area of expertise is the connection of equipment with long asset life (typically up to 40 years) to modern and frequently changing telecommunications technology. A large SCADA system we design interfaces for has, in 25 years, been through three generations of telecommunications technology, first analogue, then digital, and now internet based.
Recent activities include design of electronics modules for a water company to extend the life of its existing telecommunications equipment, specialist equipment to support electricity supply protection systems, adaption equipment enabling wind farm outputs to be cost effectively monitored by the National Grid and a bespoke measurement module for a harsh environment using our own electronics and firmware designs.
We also supply to a specific client a very high resilience monitoring system with six servers and up to fifty client workstations. The client and server software packages are all designed, written and maintained by us.
Registered Office: Avenue Lodge, Staunton-on-Arrow, LEOMINSTER, HR6 9LE
Contact: Nigel Thomas. E-mail: pomonalink@ut55.com
Website: ut55.com
Herefordshire Citizens Advice Bureaux www.herefordshirecab.org.uk
Herefordshire CAB delivers an open access, free, confidential, impartial and independent legal advice service. We believe that whoever you are, whatever your problem, we can help.
The service values diversity, promotes equality and challenges discrimination, through its dual service aims of:
- Providing the advice people need for the problems they face; and
- Improving the policies and practices that affect people’s lives.
Specialities:
We provide free, confidential, impartial and independent advice to individuals in the following areas:
- Benefits
- Consumer issues
- Debt
- Employment
- Housing
- Immigration
- Legal
- Relationships
Our services range from providing initial information, through to specialist casework; tailored to the individual needs of our clients. For details about how to access our services, please see our website.
Website: www.herefordshirecab.org.uk
Contact details: Please see our website for information.
Facebook: herefordshirecab
Twitter: @hfdscab
Registered Address: 8 St Owen Street, Hereford, HR1 2PJ
Questhills Ltd www.questhills.co.uk
We provide coaching to private individuals and to managers and executives in a range of organisations. We also provide team coaching; and training in leadership, and in coaching skills. Much of our work takes us abroad, and we would love to do more work with more local companies.
Registered Address: 37 Questhills Road, Malvern WR14 1RL
Contact details: 01684 562 442 / 07979 851529 / nick@questhills.co.uk
Website: www.questhills.co.uk
Robert Owen Community Banking Fund www.rocbf.co.uk
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Robert Owen Community Banking Fund is a social investment organisation that specialises in financing renewable energy at both domestic and community scale. Through our Community Energy Fund, we supply finance to community organisations in Wales to cover the up-front costs they encounter before it is clear whether their renewable energy project is viable and can be installed. Effectively, we enable projects to happen by de-risking the development process. We call our funding ‘solidarity finance’ – where the fees we charge successful projects underwrite the losses incurred by those that fail to proceed, so that the latter have nothing to repay.
And we do more. We work with groups to help equip them with the skills and understanding they need to access construction finance – whether this is raised locally through a share offer or negotiated with a bank. We help groups to understand the due diligence requirements associated with loans and shares, so that they can go out with confidence to raise the capital required to install their renewable energy projects. Above all we try and work flexibly with our community partners, so that we can all achieve our aim of developing a community owned energy sector in Wales.
Contact details: Tel: 01686 626234; e-mail: mick.brown@rocbf.co.uk
Website: www.rocbf.co.uk
Registered Address: Unit H, Vastre Enterprise Park, Newtown, Powys, SY16 1DZ