Chairman's Update - Renewable Energy

As I normally want to keep the membership up to speed on some important development work that has been going on for some months now. After a series of meetings and surveys being completed recently at the latest Board meeting on Monday 17 November 2014 the Board voted to move to the next phase, which is the preparation of contracts.

Now the back ground information, we have been involved in talks with a Company called Emotion Energy which have recently become preferred partners with the EIBA the result of which was the launch of a surprising package to all 305 affiliated clubs of the EIBA, offering the installation of 3 renewable energy systems into each club.

As we were the first to show any interest we have secured a deal that in itself appeared to be too good to be true. Scepticism was the watchword of the second series of meetings, but the sincerity of the CEO and its UK sales manager won the day. The 3 systems on offer which we have provisionally agreed installation of are the following:

1. A bio mass boiler system to replace our existing 40 year old heating system.
   
   
2. L.E.D. lighting throughout the entire building plus any external lighting that is already in place.
   
   
3. A PV solar panel system rated at 150 KW on our South facing roof.
   
   

The overall effect of this installation will be the reduction of our annual energy consumption for heating and lighting from its present level of £24,459.21 p down to £3,673 per annum, which equates to a saving of some £420,000 over the contract period, however with inflation linking the total savings by the Club would be circa £500,000.

Our existing system will be left intact as a backup system, in the unlikelihood of the bio mass boiler failing. The bio mass boilers are Austrian made and are the finest in the world, they have already had models which have been running 10 years at 24/7 and the extrapolated failure rate is now approaching 25 years without failure. The expected degradation of the installed PV solar panel system is such that at the expiry of our contract our system will still be generating electricity at 86% which will be producing energy way beyond our expected consumption rate. The L.E.D. lighting system will draw a much lower rate than our current system, likely to be 55% of our current consumption rate for our tube lighting at the moment. The L.E.D. lighting is being supplied by Phillips Sport lighting and the lighting/lux levels will be at International Lux levels. The outline proposal by Emotion Energy is that they will install all 3 systems described above at no cost or risk to the Club and our only commitment will be a PPA of 6.455p for lighting and heating at an annual cost of £3,673.00. Until we have the final solution for the Club this PPA rate is only “indicative” and could well be much lower.

All installed systems have substantial warranties and guarantees on them and are remotely monitored for performance and any unexpected malfunctions.

Should the contracts proof acceptable to both parties then we expect the installation work to commence in May and be completed and commissioned by the beginning of June 2015.

The Board have received briefing papers and have accepted the explanations to their questions which have been fully investigated and supported by factual evidence. All the contractors engaged are rated A1 companies, listed in Companies House and come highly rated for delivering the goods on time and within budget.

Fact, if we were having to fund this project ourselves then we would be paying £325,000 , but the funding obtained by Emotion Energy in respect of this total project which is subject to further expansion beyond England is massive, running to hundreds of millions of pounds. Obviously the backer will require a return on his investment, this is provided by the Government payments namely FIT’s and RHI over the 20 year contract period.

There is a separate offer for our Club members via a dual fuel deal and FREE Solar PV for member’s homes where Club, EIBA and EE would share the commissions available as well as providing substantial benefits to members.

A lot of the members will be saying just like the Board did at the very beginning that there is no such thing as a free lunch! AS explained by one of the funding partners, you have to turn your thinking upside down. We are renting our facility to the funders for a period of 20 years which in turn we agree to them installing all 3 systems to generate their returns on their initial investment and the club benefits in reduced energy costs plus accrued savings for the contract period. This I really believe will secure this clubs financial future well into the future and we will be leaving a fantastic legacy to the Club.

A question that I asked at the outset of discussions is what is the catch, the answer was that we did not take up its offer of Solar PV power generation when it was first offered to us 4 years ago.

D.R.Murley Chairman.

I am more than willing to answer any questions to the above; if I cannot answer them then I will endeavour to get the answers for you.