Egni Co-op has announced that it has extended its Share Offer target to £4.8m. The co-op has a total of 4.4MWp on 88 roofs in Wales on schools, businesses and community buildings. Egni is now the largest rooftop solar co-op in the UK.
Dan McCallum, co-director said “This is our final target. We expect to be closing the Share Offer early in the New Year so this could be the perfect Christmas gift. Anyone can invest in our co-op from a minimum of £50.
We’ve already raised £4.62m from shares and successfully paid off our £2.2m loan from the Development Bank of Wales. We now want to pay off a £180k loan to our parent charity Awel Aman Tawe so it can reinvest the funds in our exciting new development, Hwb y Gors. The Hwb is a new enterprise, arts and education venue in the Swansea Valley which we are currently refurbishing. In addition to a projected annual 4% interest from shares in Egni, all our members will get a free cup of coffee, cake and tour of the Hwb! We expect the Hwb to be opening in the summer. At the moment, our ground source heat pump is being installed – you can see updates here.
Rosie Gillam, Egni co-director said “All of our Egni sites are backed by the Feed in Tariff. We are very proud that we have been able to meet all interest payments to our members for both Egni and Awel Co-ops in line with the Share Offer Documents every year. Our Egni sites have generated very well in 2021 so we are very confident of the performance of the panels. We’re saving our sites over £100k per year in electricity costs and reducing carbon emissions by over 1000 tonnes per year.
All surplus from Egni goes into climate change education in Welsh schools which we’re delivering in partnership with our fellow charity, Energy Sparks who have a brilliant energy data platform for schools www.energysparks.uk. Our Education Officer, Jen James has been working with schools in Pembrokeshire, Newport and Swansea where we have solar panels – working with children to engage some fantastic work with our facilitators, Sion Thomas Owen, Ynni Da, Mr Phormula and TTS Practical Science. You can see how Saundersfoot Primary are reducing their energy consumption here.
About Egni Co-op
Egni has installed 4.4 MWp of rooftop solar on 88 schools, community buildings and businesses across Wales. It’s now the largest rooftop solar co-op in the UK. www.egni.coop
Here are recent films made by double BAFTA Cymru winner, Mike Harrison about the largest rooftop solar project in Wales on the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome in Newport and at Merthyr Town Football Club – Velodrome: https://youtu.be/ZC80dcRmla0 Merthyr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Des8Fr-qgnk
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.
In 2019, Egni Co-op won Outstanding Renewable Energy Project in an award sponsored by Welsh Government & Awel Aman Tawe was recognised as Environmental Organisation of the Year in the Social Enterprise UK Awards.
For further details of Egni, please contact Dan McCallum 07590 848818
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