Agenda item

Report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services.

The Committee agreed to take item 14, Portsoken Community Energy Project, at this point on the agenda.

Members considered a report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services Department in respect of the Portsoken Community Energy Project. The Chairman invited Afsheen Rashid from Repowering, to address the Committee.

Members heard that it was good news to have a site identified and costs agreed, however, the project was no longer able to benefit from the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) pre-accreditation. As identified in the feasibility investigations, the panels would need to be connected to meters in the communal areas, classed as “domestic”, rather than through the Artizan Streel Library which was designated as “non-domestic”. Only non-domestic sites were eligible under the FIT scheme. Whilst this did lose security of FIT income on the project, it did remove time constraints that had been imposed by the FIT.

In order to address the matter of income, an alternative financial model had been proposed to the Committee. The model was a blend of funding sources including at least 50% of community shares and the remaining 50% of capital costs could be sourced from carbon offset funds, Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Value contribution.

Engagement with residents included door-to-door visits and a consultation evening had been overwhelmingly positive with lots of interest if compared to Repowering’s similar projects on similar estates. This engagement would continue to run on a monthly basis with the prospect of more tailored events in due course.

Members were still in support of the project and were hopeful of its success. They expressed their thanks for the work done on recalibrating the financial model following the withdrawal of the FIT eligibility. A question was raised as to the long-term view on the sustainability of the project. Ms Rashid assured Members that there were a number of funding options including exporting surplus energy out to market at a commercial rate; there was a lot of appetite for corporate involvement in this sort of scheme. One Member suggested that this model may be rolled out to other City of London Corporation run-estates, which may then collectively result in a more substantial contribution.

The Chairman informed the Committee that he had been having ongoing conversations about how this project was complementary to and may eventually link in with the increased number of electric vehicle charging points being installed around the City.

RECEIVED.