The great news is that HEN has been awarded a £17K  grant by the Urban Community Energy Fund, which gives us funds to cover all the many startup costs that Herts Solar Schools will incur – things like surveys, publicity, planning, contract negotiation etc. We have already begun carrying out surveys on sites to create Energy Perfomance Certificates which are required by OFGEM if we want to qualify for Feed-in Tariff payments.

At the same time, we have had the devastating news that DECC plans to slash the FiT rates in January, effectively killing off the small scale solar PV industry, and small-scale community PV energy in particular. However, we have one last shot – we currently plan to pre-register our installations with OFGEM. If we can do this in the next few months, we have a good chance that FiT rates will be held for a year, giving us 12 months in which to raise the money and install the panels. So wish us luck. The clock is now ticking…

From data provided by the school’s electricity supplier, we can begin to get an idea of the impact that the solar panels are having on the school’s electricity useage. Here is a graph showing daily consumption in kwh over the period April to July 2013 (in red) and April to July 2014 (blue). (If you click on it you should see it in more detail). Consider that the panels were installed in April 2014, you can see straight away that – all other things being equal – they seem to have cut the school’s use of electricity from the grid by more than half. We will need a full year’s data to see the pattern during the darker winter months, but it gives us hope that the panels will reduce the school’s use of grid electricity by at least a quarter.

Note: you can clearly see the consumption pattern of the 5-day week, followed by the 2 day weekend in both charts. The sharp spikes on this appear to be days when the weather was particularly poor, with heavy cloud, so PV output is down, while the school will need extra lights. Can we begin to replace lighting with LEDS? More on this in the autumn…

Here’s the story by Sara Greek in the Mercury… No photo from the party but a good picture of the Head on the roof, plus Becky Kennard who designed the wonderful picture for the electricity display meter. And we have announced the next phase of the project: HertsSolarSchools, which will put panels on the roofs of dozens of other schools in the region.

Thanks to all who made it for the launch party at Mill Mead on Wednesday – it was a pleasure to see you all, and I hope you had an enjoyable time. Thanks to Sue for hosting us. It was also great to see the sun shining on our panels and watching the dial spin! Let’s try to do it again soon.
And we got a chance to publicise HertsSolarSchools, which is Phase 2 of our grand plan to bring community solar power to East Herts. Email us if you want to hear more…

Took the opportunity to visit Green Energy Nayland’s solar array at the local school in the beautiful Suffolk village of Nayland. Their success (and guidance notes!) were key to getting HEN off the ground and it was wonderful to finally see their efforts for ourselves. Green Energy Nayland has sinced moved on to install two other installations – hopefully HEN can follow suit soon.

Great news – Chelsfield Solar has completed the installation of our solar array at Mill Mead School. As of this morning, the panels have been generating clean green power from the sun and feeding it into the grid. As you can see here, the display screen in the school’s lobby already shows 2 KWh of power, and that’s just the start!

Great to see that DECC has finally caught up with what’s already happening at hundreds of schools round the UK and released a rather simple guide to help them think about ways to put solar on the roof. Could have done a lot more, HEN thinks, but judge for yourself here

And more good news at Mill Mead as the solar installation starts to arrive…

Adrian from Chelsfield kindly agreed to come out on Saturday to put up this wonderful banner on the school’s fence – look out for it if you’re passing by the school. Hopefully the message is clear – and will encourage any passers-by to ask what’s going on next week…

Herts County Council has approved our planning application and since this was the final hurdle to clear, panel installation is on the near horizon. In the last weeks we have discussed various details, including access and H&S issues, with the school community to ensure that installation goes smoothly, and we expect Chelsfield Solar to be on site during the Easter holidays to install the panels and equipment. That should minimise disruption, but get the panels in place in time for a sunny spring and summer! Watch the roof…

Happy new year to all our members. There is lots of good news to celebrate.
Firstly we can confirm that we have chosen an installer, a Hertfordshire-based company called Chelsfield Solar. We selected this company on the basis of best value, locality and reputation. They offer an excellent product, we have direct knowledge of their installation, and the company is well established – for example, it has been invited by the consumer group Which? to share knowledge about the solar PV industry with consumers. We also have an agreed layout for the installation which meets structural requirements. Finally, Herts County Council have confirmed that we have their permission, as landlords, for the array to proceed. The next stage is to apply to HCC planning dept for approval. We also made it into the Hertfordshire Mercury over Xmas. More to report soon…

The great news is that HEN is flying!
We are just five days into our share offer and we have received cheques for more than £38,000 out of the total £45,000 that we had hoped to raise.
This is all thanks to about 25 investors, a mix of Mill Mead School parents, members of local eco group Transition Hertford, plus a sprinkling of local residents who just want to get involved in this kind of community project.
Thanks to you all, we will have the panels up on the school in 2014 – by Easter with luck! Here’s to people power!

Following a few weeks of hectic activity, including delivering over 1000 leaflets to residents around Mill Mead, we held our first public meeting and launch event on Wednesday October 9th. The evening was introduced and hosted by Mill Mead’s Head Sue Nesbitt-Larking, and it seems that we have got off to a great start – the meeting attracted over 30 people who listened to a 20 minute explanation of what HEN hopes to do, and followed it up with another 20 minutes of discussion and questions. The first cheque arrived the following morning!

7 July 2013: HEN put in an appearance at the school fete to advertise the scheme and gain support from parents and visitors. We showed off a small solar panel which kept the Splat A Rat team cool! A very succesful day!

10 July 2013: Kieron Lock from Lock Electrical inspects Mill Mead roof. His company installed the panels at Nayland Primary School in Suffolk.

15 June 2013: Hertford Energy Now was set up by Graham Kennard, Ben Crystall and Ann Woodward. We held our inaugural meeting with Mill Mead School Head Sue Nesbitt-Larking at The Mill Stream Pub in Port Vale where we discussed the proposal and had a drink to celebrate!