Wight Community Energy is 1 of 6 community solar farms across England and Wales to have generated a combined £60,000 of surplus profit which it will give to partners to support their local communities.
The 6 solar farms work in collaboration and are supported by Community Owned Renewable Energy (CORE) Partners. Profits generated by the farms have been pooled into an annual community benefit fund that is managed by CORE. This new money is the second batch of funding to be released early by CORE and its advisors, Finance Earth, after a similar release in 2020.
It brings total funding to support communities over the last 2 years to over to £255,000.
Wight Community Energy, a 3.9 MW solar farm near Shalfleet, has received £8,000. Other beneficiaries include Yealm Community Energy (Plymouth) £10,000, Creacombe (Plymouth) £2,400, Shropshire and Telford Community Energy (Shropshire) £20,000, Kent Community Energy (Sittingbourne) £10,000 and Brynwhilach (Swansea) £10,000.
André Sarvarian, Associate Director at Finance Earth, said:
“The last year has given both society and everyday people the opportunity to revaluate what’s important in our lives and shift energies and priorities towards activist voluntary actions towards improving both community resilience and sustainability to address climate change. The community benefit distributions these projects generate could one day make a significant contribution toward tackling these long term challenges we face.”
Great stuff to hear, need more of this
What a waste of good farmland. These solar panels should be on rooves, not on good agricultural land. Now all the carbon they save will be used to import our food.