Heart of England Community Energy has had an update on the first 6 months of the Act on Energy Complex Case Worker project which we are funding. Act on Energy has provided 70 home visits, and 60 intensive web/phone support sessions to fuel poor customers. Facilitating the installation of over 200 fuel-saving items, including draught proofing, radiator foils, and energy-efficient light bulbs. Facilitating cumulative financial savings from energy use reductions, with an estimated total of £4,170 per annum. Act on Energy has educated 13 front-line workers on the links between warm homes and energy efficiency and its benefits for health. By the end of the project, they expect this number to be well over 100. The distribution of this knowledge is key to ensuring this area of deprivation gets the attention it deserves, which in turn will save lives. Part of their approach has been to supply toolkits, of which they have delivered 130 already. These toolkits detail key behavioural changes individuals can make to reduce their fuel bills, including only boiling the water they need, washing clothes at lower temperatures, and highlighting the potential for application to further funding, one of which being the warm home discount. From their feedback, they believe these will have prompted £24,000 in total annual savings.

Citizens Advice South Warwickshire (CASW) is a local charity that provides free, confidential and impartial advice and information on a wide range of subjects. Heart of England Community Energy provides money to fund admin for their grants program. The grants finance necessities, furniture, clothing, heating, and household appliances, all of which make a significant positive impact on the lives of individuals facing financial hardships due to adverse circumstances. HECE's support pays for 64% of the hours worked by the charity’s admin team, who identify and facilitate grant funding. As such our community energy group has directly enable the granting of £10,523 in essential items and appliances for 46 residents in hardship. The washing machines, clothing, cookers, and fridges we have helped provide to those in need will have made what has been a financially tough winter a bit more bearable.

We made a donation of £695 to Stratford Upon Avon Foodbank. This funding enabled the purchase of 174 cans of ham, as well as some other items necessary to complete their 459 Christmas Hampers. The food bank informed us that the ham was enough to feed around 330 individuals, thus our contribution helped to improve the Christmas season of that many people.

Team SolarAid would like to say a massive thank you for all your support in 2022. We really appreciate the support from Heart of England Community Energy and their investors. With your grant of £3,000, we were able to support women to become thriving solar entrepreneurs in Malawi, in areas that have never been reached by solar power before. We couldn’t have done it without you. Best wishes and have a lovely festive period ❄️ If you are interested in learning more about the project, please follow this link to a Webinar recording with their team.

Thanks to supporters like the Heart of England Community Energy Limited, SolarAid were able to launch the programme in 2021, recruiting the first 41 groups of Mayi Walas. The team in Malawi have just been out to chat (and dance!) with the very first groups, to learn about how becoming a Mayi Wala has impacted their lives: Magret Nkhata lives in Imran village with her four children. She said ‘My dream is to continue the solar business so that everyone should have access. The whole area should have access to light, that is my dream.’ Beatrix Maini lives in Nyama with her children. She is happy with the solar power the programme has brought to her village ‘Once the solar lights arrived, the children have been able to study and they are performing well. Their future will be bright. Thanks to your generous donation of £2,500, 2 groups of Mayi Walas were established, creating entrepreneurship opportunities for women to bring safe, clean solar light to their communities. The team is currently recruiting more Mayi Wala groups across Malawi. Over the next three years, this programme will support 230 groups across 25 of 28 districts in Malawi. To find out more about SolarAid and how to donate please see: https://solar-aid.org/

£750,000 raised to complete our long-term financing At the end of 2021 HECE launched a solar bond offer via Ethex to raise up to £1.1million and complete our long-term financing. In February 2022 the target was reduced to £750,000. HECE no longer needed to raise the full amount as, subsequent to launching the offer, we secured power purchase agreements that have further improved our future cash flows. The reduced target was quickly met and our long-term financing is now complete. The 2021 bond offer has a term of 15 years paying 4% gross interest annually, but interest payments and return of capital are not guaranteed. THE OFFER IS NOW CLOSED. Investors in our 2018 bond offer will be repaid as planned at the end of April 2022, having been paid the full target interest each year. Our community solar array, made up of over 55,000 solar panels at Drayton Manor Farm on the outskirts of Stratford-upon-Avon, was bought into community ownership in 2018. The community buy-back was funded by two community investment offers which raised £600,000 in community investment alongside £16.5 million of bank loans and social investment. John Stott, volunteer Director of Heart of England Community Energy said, “Since commissioned, our solar array has generated 57 million kilowatt hours of electricity from the sun, provided £66,000 of funding to support local environmental and fuel poverty initiatives, and our community investors have been paid interest at 5 to 6% per year as offered in our 2017/18 share and bond offer documents. This latest community bond offer is the last piece in the jigsaw of securing the long-term funding for the solar array.” HECE’s solar arrays generate over £1.6 million per year in revenue. As well as covering operating and finance costs (including interest and capital repayments to our share and bond investors), we expect to generate at least £3.5 million over the solar farms’ 25-year operating life to support local community initiatives. John Stott adds, “It has taken years of work by the volunteer board and our advisors but the legacy for local communities makes it worthwhile. Our community solar array will generate green electricity for at least the next 20 years, and income to support our transition to a low carbon future.”

2021 has been a challenging year for many in our local communities. In the build up to Christmas, we once again made a donation to Stratford Upon Avon Foodbank towards Christmas hampers including Christmas puddings/cakes, tinned food and personal hygiene products. Heart of England continues to support Citizens Advice South Warwickshire to help their vital support services to those hit hard by the Corona virus crisis and recession. Another donation to Solar Aid has been made to support their crucial work. Caroline Sampson, Trustee and Secretary of Stratford upon Avon Foodbank said: "On behalf of the Trustees and volunteers of Stratford upon Avon Foodbank, I should like to thank you for your kindness in donating £729.79 to our charity for our Christmas Hamper project. This project was a great success and we were able to distribute a total of 404 hampers, benefiting 1,109 individuals (548 adults and 561 children)." Heart of England Community Energy's 2021 solar bond offer has now raised over £450,000. To find out more please visit: https://www.ethex.org.uk/invest/heart-of-england-community-energy

Each year, Heart of England Community Energy donates some of its community funds to projects which help tackle energy poverty and climate change in developing countries. For 3 years running we have made a donation to SolarAid, a charity which distributes solar lighting to remote and disadvantaged communities in sub-Saharan Africa. The SolarAid team have created this short video to highlight the impact of their work in 2021.

Pupils from three primary schools in Warwickshire have been given a behind-the-scenes insight into different careers within the renewables industry, after paying a visit to the HECE solar farm which is the largest community solar farm in the UK. Around 135 children, aged 9-11, were invited to attend a workshop at Leys Solar Farm in Stratford-upon-Avon. Taking place across four days in July, the initiative was designed to educate the next generation on climate change, while inspiring young people to think about green careers. During their visit, the pupils from Thomas Jolyffe and St Greggs primary schools took part in a range of practical activities. They were given a tour of the solar farm and got to meet the team who constructed it. They also took part in wind and solar power challenges, which saw them making a wind turbine out of old materials and using small solar cells to build a power circuit as well as exciting energy saving games to encourage positive behavioural change. Leys Solar Farm forms part of the largest community owned solar farm in the UK, which covers an area of 75 acres – the equivalent of more than 1,800 football pitches. The solar development comprises of around 60,000 solar panels and is capable of generating enough energy to power around 3,800 homes. It was designed and constructed by Reading-based renewable energy developer, Anesco, who also sponsored the school visits. Tom Wales, Regional Operations Manager at Anesco, commented: “It was fantastic to meet all the children and to talk to them about solar power and the role renewable energy has to play in tackling climate change. They were so enthusiastic, with loads of great questions! “If the UK is to achieve its net zero carbon emissions target and make the switch to cleaner, greener energy then we’re going to need a skilled workforce to deliver it and hopefully these workshops gave the children an insight into the many different types of careers on offer.” Kate Evans, Graduate Planet, who co-ordinated the initiative, said: “A huge thank you to all the schools who joined us. For the children, this was a fantastic opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at a solar farm and to learn about climate change through fun, practical activities. We’re sure they’ll remember the experience for a long time to come.” Kate continued: “Following the various lockdowns and a time where the children’s worlds have been so much smaller, the chance to go on a trip somewhere so unique, has not only been fantastic for their learning but also their wellbeing. We cannot thank our generous sponsors and supporters enough, as well as those who gave up their time to join us for the workshops and helped make the visits such a success.” The four-day event was funded and backed by a number of organisations including Heart of England Community Energy (HECE), Anesco, Orbit Group, Graduate Planet CIC and The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Each year HECE makes a donation to SolarAid, a charity which gets solar lighting to rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. The £2,500 donated helps distribute 625 solar lights to households that can spend 10% of their income on kerosene. Solar lighting helps save money and tackle the health issues of lighting homes with kerosene, or not at all. SolarAid has also helped light libraries and makeshift covid units. To find out more please download SolarAid's impact report: .

Heart of England Community Energy's AGM will be held on Monday 28th June at 7pm via Zoom. Please see the RESOURCES page for details. We look forward to seeing you there.

Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year to all our members and bondholders. Energy Generation As we approach a wet mid-winter, it’s a good time to remember that we had another sunny summer which our solar arrays made the most of. Following a strong spring quarter, irradiance levels continued to surpass long-term projections by 5.7% across the July – September quarter. This led to generation across the HECE’s solar arrays being 2.8% above the long-term average projections. Electricity prices crashed in early 2020 due to the Corona crisis and the oil and gas market slump in late 2019. Whilst two of our three solar farms benefit from a minimum export price, the third does not. Prices had recovered in September and we were able to enter into a 12-month price fix at a good rate. Bondholder and Shareholder Payments Bondholder interest was paid at 5% in May and shareholder interest at 6% in July, meeting our intended interest payments in full for the second year. Following the successful refinance in 2019 we are planning to launch a further community share or bond offer. This has been delayed due to the Corona virus crisis and will launch in 2021. AGM Our online AGM in June worked well. If you were not able to attend you can find the presentation and minutes on our website. Local News 2020 has been a challenging year for many of us. Heart of England continues to support local energy charity Act on Energy to help local households struggling with fuel poverty. We have provided funding to Citizens Advice South Warwickshire to help their vital support services to those hit hard by the Corona virus crisis and recession. We have made another donation to Solar Aid and, in the build up to Christmas, we made a donation to Stratford Upon Avon Foodbank towards Christmas hampers including Christmas puddings/cakes, tinned potatoes and personal hygiene products. The donation helped the Foodbank to complete 40 hampers. Queries relating to your share or bondholding Ethex Registry are the key point of contact in relation to any matters of member shareholdings and bondholdings. Ethex store your share and bond certificates in a digital format and you are able to access your records online and print out certificates at any time via the Ethex Registry Portal - https://registry.ethex.org.uk/ . Or if you have any questions at all about your holdings, please don’t hesitate to contact the team at Ethex for help either by email at registry@ethex.org.uk or by phone on 01865 403304. If you have any queries about your shares or need to change your email or bank details please contact our share registrar Ethex as above. We hope you have a happy winter break and we look forward to life starting to become more normal in 2021! Best wishes John Stott on behalf of the HECE board