Since early 2009 we have been investigating the possibility of adding renewable energy source(s) - Photovoltaic Panels and/or  a Wind Turbine to cover the hall's electricity use and feed back any surplus into the grid.

The late Eddie Haylett kindly left us a legacy of £5000, which we decided should be used towards a lasting project, rather than just being absorbed in the general running costs of the hall.

In August 2009 we were awarded a CSEP (Big Lottery) grant of £ 2.500 or (75%) of what it would cost to do a renewable energy development study, which was completed January 2010, part of the document is uploaded below. This has helped  us decide which renewable energy source(s) are best suited to the hall and its location.

The original, total project cost was around £74.000, which we had planned to cover by a mixture of own funds, grants and perhaps donations. For the purpose of the latter the hall has been registered both on www.everyclick.com, which can be used as a browser at no cost to the donor,  and  the energy project  itself is registered on www.thebiggive.org.uk.  We were offered a capital grant of 34.474 by CSEP (Big Lottery) subject to obtaining planning permission, but our application for £ 30.000 to EDF was unfortunately not successful. We then decided just to go ahead with the wind turbine, but in the end unfortunately have had to decline the lottery grant, as there was some dispute with NNDC about the location of the turbine and thereby a delay of obtaining the planning permission beyond the 12 months the Lottery allowed for the project to be completed. 
However, we still very much intend to go ahead with the turbine now we have the planning permission and an agreement with Anglian Water to site it at the back of their pumping station. Apart from our own contribution, we now need to raise the rest of the funding - £ 30.000 - from scratch.  New funding Aaplications will be going forward in September 2011 and other sources such as loans will be considered.

The turbine will not only save a lot of CO2 (5 tonnes a year), but also help the financial side of the hall's operation through the feed-in tariffs, (generation and export).  
Click here to see illustrations of the renewable energy sources and a mock-up of the setting with the original siting an d here to see the proposed alternative siting of the turbine, to reduce the impact on the land north/north-east of the hall which is a site specific proposal for housing in the LDF.

Click here for a link to the Evance website and details about the Evance 9000 

Click here to see our Environmental Policy. 

Development Study