Egni Co-op has announced that it’s approaching its target of £4m from the co-op share offer, one of the largest ever undertaken in the UK. Egni has installed rooftop solar on schools, community buildings and businesses across Wales.
Dan McCallum, Egni co-director said “We’ve had an amazing response to our Share Offer. We’d like to encourage as many people across the UK to join us and help tackle climate change through the sun’s power. People and companies can invest from as little as £50. “
Egni has now installed 4.2MWp of rooftop solar on 85 sites in Wales. All the sites are backed by the Feed in Tariff. Egni is refinancing our loan from the Development Bank of Wales with co-op shares as this is at 5% interest whereas co-op members invest at 4% interest. This means that there is more surplus going into climate change education projects in Welsh schools. Egni sites achieve:
a) £108k per year in electricity savings in Wales
b) prevent the emission of 1,008 tonnes per year of carbon dioxide
Dan added “We are also delighted to announce that the performance of our panels has been excellent in 2020 and we will be able to pay interest to all our members interest at 4% in line with our Share Offer. This includes all our school sites who all own £500 of share in Egni.
We are so grateful to all our members, some of whom have invested £50 and others such as the Friends Provident Foundation who’ve invested £100,000. We’re happy with the smallest investments – it’s a chance to build confidence in the co-op model and we’ve had lots of people who put £50 into Awel Co-op, visited our wind farm, saw it worked, and then put more into Egni. Co-ops are very democratic structures based on one member, one vote so they are a great way to engage people in climate change action. “
About Egni
Here’s a recent film made by double BAFTA Cymru winner, Mike Harrison about the largest rooftop solar project in Wales on the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome in Newport https://youtu.be/ZC80dcRmla0
The team behind Egni Co-op have also delivered the award-winning Awel Co-op, a 4.7MW community wind farm which was commissioned in Jan 2017. It was funded by a £5.25m loan from Triodos Bank and a £3m community share offer www.awel.coop.
Egni Co-op won Outstanding Renewable Energy Project in an award sponsored by Welsh Government in December 2019 (https://egni.co-op/egni-co-op-earns-a-place-in-the-sun-at-wales-sustainability-academy-awards/) & Awel Aman Tawe was recognised as Environmental Organisation of the Year in the Social Enterprise UK Awards – https://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/winners-of-the-uk-social-enterprise-awards-2019/
For further details of Egni, please contact Dan McCallum 07590 848818
About Welsh Government Energy Service
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