What can we learn from other places?
Isle of Gigha – Scotland
Gigha was purchased in 2002 for its 98 inhabitants through the newly formed Gigha heritage trust. The
community land buy-out was funded by £1million of loans, the rest from grant funding.
The trust looked to renewables to generate energy and income for the community, including to help
cover the buy-out loan payments.
In 2004 the island began generating, with 3 second hand Vestas 225kW turbines (similar to the turbines being considered for Sark). The trust added a further turbine, an Enercon E33, in 2011. The turbines, known locally as the Dancing Ladies, have enabled the repayment of capital and have also provided funds to improve housing, most of which were previously defined as ‘below tolerable standards’.
Unlike Sark, Gigha is connected to the mainland grid and the turbines benefit from a UK revenue subsidy.
Isle of Eigg – Scotland
Eigg was powered by diesel generators. In 2008 Eigg completed the installation of an island owned
energy system, providing power to residents at 23p/kWh.
The system consists of three hydro generators (1 x 100kW and 2 x 6kW), 4 x 6kW wind turbines, 54kW of solar, a 160kW diesel generator and a battery system.
These were connected via a new island grid, with 11km of High Voltage underground cabling. 95% of the island’s electricity is now provided by renewables. The Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, the community organisation which owns the island, secured £1.6 million in grant funding to develop and build the system.
The ingenuity of the system and the community that achieved it have attracted international attention. Whilst nearby islands communities are seeing a problematic decline, Eigg has bucked the trend with an increase in population and businesses.
Burnham and Weston Energy CIC, Somerset
Burnham and Weston Energy CIC is a not-for-profit community company that owns a 36,000 panel community solar farm serving Weston-super-Mare and Burnham-on-Sea.
The 9.3MW solar farm was set up in 2016 and cost over £11million to build.
The finance came from a £7.4million long-term bank loan and £4million from community bondholders, each of whom have a ‘1
member 1 vote’ share. Burnham and Weston Energy CIC is run on a not for profit basis and generates over £50,000 per year
surplus income for local community projects. They are one of a number of community energy projects set up and financed with the support of CfR, which is helping with Sark’s community power system. CfR has helped develop and finance over £70million of community energy projects.