Domestic energy efficiency should be designated a national infrastructure priority for any new government, claim groups combating fuel poverty. Following political parties’ launching their political manifestos, National Energy Action has launched its own. According to the government, a household is in fuel poverty if spending on required fuel cots is above average and meeting those costs would leave the household below the poverty line. Figures from the government show that between 2003 and 2017 there has not been much progress on tackling the issue as the number of households in fuel poverty has remained stable between 10% and 12% of English homes. Heart of England Community Energy's community fund has given funds to the Act on Energy charity to combat local fuel poverty. Act on Energy staff do outreach sessions and support to save money on energy, home assessments, and are running a pilot to work with GPs to identify people whose poor health is partly down to fuel poverty. Maria Wardrobe, Director of Communications at National Energy Action, said: “This winter, thousands of people will fall victim to the cold. It’s invading our homes and causing breathing problems, strokes and heart attacks. It’s making people’s lives stressful and miserable, and preventing our children from thriving. ‘‘But we can cure this. A Government-funded, national heating and insulation scheme would vaccinate our homes against the cold. Giving incomes a boost would also mean that people could afford to switch on their heating and stay warm and healthy.” The full Manifesto for Warmth can be found here.

The Directors of Heart of England Community Energy ltd are very pleased to announce we have completed a £16.3million refinance. We have replaced the short-term loans from Close Brothers and Social and Sustainable Capital (SASC) with new long-term lower cost loans from Triodos Bank UK and SASC. The transaction was managed by CfR CIC. The transaction was undertaken to secure long-term, lower-cost finance for our solar projects, with reduced loan repayments allowing more money to be used to support community projects. The total package of £16.3 million combines senior loans of around £12 million from Triodos Bank UK with junior loans from SASC of around £4.3 million. SASC provided capital to fund the community acquisition of the solar farm in 2016. A community bond offer will be launched next year to raise around £1.5million to repay some of the SASC junior debt and complete the long-term finance package. Heart of England Community Energy uses profits from the solar farm to support a fuel poverty advice service run by local charity Act on Energy and a community grant fund. The community grant fund has so far provided funding to Harbury e-Wheels, a Warwickshire-based community transport charity, and SolarAid, a charity working in Africa to provide solar lights. Heart of England Community Energy Chairman: "I am delighted that we have reached a new stage of maturity for Heart of England Community Energy. Together with our partners we have been able to secure more favourable financing that will allow us to contribute more to our community fund." CfR Director Jake Burnyeat said: “CfR and the Heart of England Community Energy board are very pleased to have reached this milestone. The loans from Triodos Bank and Social and Sustainable Capital provide a long-term lower cost finance solution which will help increase surplus income generated by the community solar farm to support local projects. It is also important that the funders share our values. Look out for the community bond offer which will launch next year and give an opportunity for people from the local and wider community to get involved!” Philip Bazin, Environment Team Manager at Triodos Bank UK, said: “This transaction proves that community energy schemes can be delivered and financed at scale. It also demonstrates our expertise at financing solar projects co-located with batteries, and at combining different tranches of finance. Such schemes have multiple positive impacts, not only do they help the clean energy transition, but their profits also benefit local people. By driving down the cost of finance, we have helped Heart of England solar to operate more profitably and increase its financial contribution to the community.” Krishna Chokshi, Investment Manager at SASC, said: “We are delighted to renew our investment in HECE, whose performance has significantly exceeded our expectations since coming into community ownership two years ago. This is a great community-owned project with an outstanding local board of trustees who are overseeing its governance and performance. HECE is providing real financial benefits for individuals and families living in fuel poverty in the region through the distribution of community benefit. Work done by HECE unlocks significant additional grants for fuel efficiency, leveraging in as much as seven times the amount of funding generated by the project.” “Community energy projects like this are essential as communities look to provider greener energy solutions and surpluses for the benefit of their local area. It is fantastic to see social investment providing finance that is enabling projects like this to thrive.” Legal counsels on the transaction were TLT, CMS, Michelmores and Lux Nova. Technical due diligence on the transaction was provided by Green Cat Renewables. The solar farm was built by Anesco who provide ongoing service and maintenance services. The co-located batteries are owned and operated by Zenobe. About Communities for Renewables CIC Communities for Renewables (CfR) CIC is a mission-led community interest company which helps communities to set up local energy enterprises and works with them to develop, finance and manage their own renewable energy generation. CfR has managed the development and financing of around £56million of community solar projects and manages 50MW of community solar projects for 7 different community energy enterprises, including Heart of England Community Energy. www.cfrcic.co.uk About Social and Sustainable Capital SASC provides simple finance for extraordinary charities and social enterprises. We believe greater access to the right kind of investment makes charities and social enterprises better able to tackle society's most pressing challenges. Our funds provide flexible capital to enable social sector organisations to grow their social impact, improving the lives of disadvantaged people across the UK. SASC is a social enterprise. About Triodos Bank Founded in 1980, Triodos Bank has become a frontrunner in sustainable banking globally. As an independent bank that promotes responsible and transparent banking, it does not see any conflict between a focus on people and the planet and a good financial return. Instead it believes that they reinforce each other in the long-term. Triodos Bank has banking activities in the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Spain, Germany and France as well as Investment Management activities based in the Netherlands and active globally. Triodos Bank co-founded the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV), a network of 54 sustainable banks. Together these banks want to grow sustainable banking and its impact on the real economy substantially.

Investment in renewable technologies around the globe quadrupled installed generation capacity in the decade to 2019. In total $2.6 trillion was invested in renewables since 2009, of which the UK accounted for $122 billion, According to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2019 report. Solar capacity saw the biggest growth in that period – a 26-fold increase in 10 years – and accounted for half of the total investment. This shift to renewable investment has resulted in renewables accounting for 12.9% of global generation, and avoided an estimated 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. “Investing in renewable energy is investing in a sustainable and profitable future, as the last decade of incredible growth in renewables has shown,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme. Renewable’s potential to combine profitability and reduce carbon emissions was highlighted by the University of California (UC) as it announced divestment from fossil fuels. UC announced that its endowment fund of £13.4 billion would be fossil free by the end of September, with its £70 billion pension fund following shortly.

The organisation that manages the UK seabed has announced a new auction for wind farm leases with capacity for 7GW. The Crown Estate, which last ran an auction in late 2010, has placed 4 areas up for auction. When developed, they could generate enough electricity to power six million homes. The four areas are the Eastern Regions together with Dogger Bank, the South East, Northern Wales and the Irish Sea. Huub den Rooijen, director of energy, minerals and infrastructure at the Crown Estate, said: "The UK is home to the world's largest offshore wind market, attracting global investment, meeting UK electricity needs, and playing a crucial role in the transition to a net zero economy.” RenewableUK, the industry trade body, welcomed the news and estimated that the auction would bring £21 billion in new investment to the UK and create 9,000 jobs. Hugh McNeal, chief executive of RenewableUK, said, “These powerhouses of the future will create thousands of highly skilled jobs, continuing the rapid regeneration of our coastal communities, as well as benefiting our UK-wide supply chain.”

Zero carbon energy sources are set to overtake fossil fuels as the source of Britain’s electricity this year. According to the National Grid, 2019 will mark the tipping point where solar, wind, nuclear and hydropower combine to produce more electricity for Britain than carbon intensive sources. This year has already seen the longest spell of coal-free energy in the UK, as the dependence on carbon intensive sources decreases in line to meet the goals of a zero carbon energy system by 2050. As well as the increase in domestic renewable energy production, the National Grid believes that it will be able to achieve the clean energy commitment in part by importing cleaner energy from countries including France, Norway, Denmark and Belgium. This is possible via undersea interconnectors which make overseas renewable sources available to the UK, such as Norway’s vast hydropower capacity. While 35% of those imports will still come from carbon intensive sources in 2020, National Grid predicts that this will drop to 9% by 2050 at which point over 90% of imported energy will come from zero carbon sources. John Pettigrew, CEO of National Grid, said: “The incredible progress that Britain has made in the past ten years means we can now say 2019 will be the year net zero power beats fossil fuel fired generation for the first time. Having reached this landmark tipping point, the question is what are we doing today to get to net zero as quickly as possible?” This trend is also happening overseas. In April of 2019 renewable energy production accounted for more energy in the US than cloak. There were 68.5 megawatts of renewable energy generated compared with 60 million from coal according to the Energy Information Administration.

Community energy companies faced by reductions in subsidy support and an uncertain government strategy are looking for other ways to continue to combat climate change and create local benefits for their community. In its State of the Sector 2019 report, Community Energy England, highlights that between 2016 and 2018 there was a decrease of 79% in investment and an 84% reduction in new electricity generation capacity in the sector. This marked the toughest year yet for community energy, evidenced further by the 81% drop in the creation of new community energy companies. Practitioners in the sector reported that the end of the feed-in-tariff and lack of government vision for the sector was to blame for these drops and called on the government to acknowledge the important role community energy plays. Despite the setbacks on securing new investment, the 275 community energy organisations in the sector continued to deliver value for communities, including £978,000 in community benefit funding. According to Community Energy England, 2019 will be another tough year, with many practitioners reporting a negative outlook. At the same time, there is space for optimism as the transition to a smarter more dynamic and integrated energy system offers opportunities to organisations. Among the three quarters of community energy organisations have plans for 2019, many include non-generation projects ranging from energy efficiency and sustainable transport to peer-to-peer energy trading. Referring to these developments, one practitioner told Community Energy England, “There appears to be a revival in the sector as groups innovate solutions to post subsidy generation, grid innovation, aggregation and demand management are starting to be taken up by some groups.” Read the full report

Heart of England Community Energy Limited Annual General Meeting 2019 Agenda 1. Welcome 2. Heart of England Community Energy update: a. Performance of solar farms. b. Payment of share and bond interest. c. Community projects supported. d. Refinance of the current Close Brothers loan with a long-term loan from Triodos Bank. e. Future bond offer plans. 3. Resolutions/ Extraordinary Resolutions: a. To present Heart of England Community Energy accounts for the year ending 31st December 2018. Note these will be the draft unaudited accounts. Audited accounts will be circulated following the AGM. b. To delegate to the directors the authority to appoint auditors c. To elect the board of directors 4. Guest speakers: Richard Milward, Act on Energy. Bob Sherman, Harbury E-Wheels. 5. AOB 6. Close Tea, coffee and soft drinks will be served at the meeting from arrival. If you have not already, please RSVP to info@hecommunityenergy.org Authorised by the Heart of England Community Energy board

The UK has beaten its previous record for longest spell of generating electricity without relying on burning coal. Over the Easter weekend, the UK enjoyed coal free electricity for the longest spell since 1882 - 192 hours. But since then, the National Grid Electricity System Operator has confirmed another longer streak. The new record has stretched beyond 300 hours now. As of this afternoon, the coal-free streak had extended 13 days! Julian Leslie, head of national control at National Grid Electricity System Operator (NGESO). “We believe that by 2025 we will be able to fully operate Great Britain’s electricity system with zero carbon.”

First bond payment and AGM We are pleased to confirm the first bond interest payment has been made in accordance with the 2018 bond offer. Interest at 5% plus a one-off 1% bonus for the first year will be in bondholders’ bank accounts by the end of May. Share interest payments to those who invested in the separate share offer will be made in July. Please contact Ethex directly if you have any queries Heart of England Community Energy AGM - Save the date Heart of England Community Energy’s AGM will be held in the Stratford-upon-Avon Methodist Church  at 7.30pm on Thursday 20th June. Registration from 7pm. A formal notice will follow. Please do put the date in your diary and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible there. It would be very helpful  to have a sense of how many of us will turn up so please: RSVP to info@hecommunityenergy.org Suppliers should support community energy Communty Energy Groups should be offered suitable energy tarrifs by energy suppliers to encourage development of new energy schemes, according to Community Energy England. Following the closure of the Feed in Tarriff and pending on the government's Smart Export Guarantee, many new schemes are in limbo as they would have to export surplus energy to the grid without receiving payment for the power. see the newsletter here: https://us20.campaign-archive.com/?u=7ec54ca0e095ebfc7d3ae4f54&id=e6d87ab02d

The UK needs to become a net-zero greenhouse emitter by 2050 in order to comply with its Paris Agreement commitments, according to the Committee on Climate Change. While the target sounds ambitious, it is achievable with existing technology, and would have many benefits for the economy, people and environment. It is also achievable with the level of cost to the economy that the government has already committed to. See the full infographic here.

Sian Berry Co-leader of the Green Party praised the efforts of local community projects when she visited Stratford on Avon on Friday 22nd February. Following the visit to our solar farm at Alceser Road, Sian Berry said: “The Heart of England Community Energy solar farm is an incredible community project, and a great example of the community-led renewable revolution we are fighting for in the Green Party. Solar power is one of the cheapest and cleanest ways to generate the energy we need, and a perfect example of how we can harness the opportunities of renewable energy to face the future. To tackle climate change we must invest in renewables and ditch fossil fuels – it’s great to see local communities leading the way on this where the Government has failed.”