ISLAY ENERGY COMMUNITY BENEFIT SOCIETY
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING – Wednesday 10th May, 7pm at
THE LIBRARY, ISLAY HIGH SCHOOL
The agenda will cover the normal business items, including Directors Report and Accounts and the election of new Directors
ALL MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND
|
|
The third Annual General Meeting of the Islay Energy Community Benefit Society (IECBS) was held at the High School on Wednesday 27th April. 17 society members and 4 from the general public attended. The Chair, Izzy Coughlin introduced the Annual Report and Audited Accounts and described how the project has progressed in its first period of full operation. The electricity generated by the turbine, and the financial performance have both been up to expectation and inline with the indications set out in the original prospectus for the project.
Accordingly, it was announced that an interest payment to the member shareholders of 4% would be made in respect of the year 2015. The main purpose of building the turbine is to provide a fund for use by the communities of Islay, Jura and Colonsay, and the Board of the Society decided that the sum of £60000 would be transferred to the registered charity, Islay Energy Trust (IET). It is hoped that similar sums will be transferred in future years, dependent entirely on the performance of the turbine (and of course the wind!).
Dr Billy Sinclair, on behalf of IET described to the meeting the priority areas to which the fund will be applied, based on the earlier research work conducted during the planning of the project. Full details will become available on the IET website in due course (www.islayenergytrust.org.uk). For further information and to express an interest in the fund, contact Billy at the IET office in Custom House, Bowmore, Mondays to Wednesdays on 301413.
Two members of the IECBS Board, Margaret Rozga and Donald Ewen Darroch, retired by rotation and announced that they would not seek re-election. One nomination to act as a Director of the Society was received and Jenni Minto was duly appointed, which leaves one vacancy.
Izzy Coughlin closed the meeting by announcing that she would step down as Chair at the next Board meeting, when a new Chair will be appointed. Izzy will however remain on the Board. The members expressed their sincere thanks for the considerable work Izzy has undertaken to get the project up-and- running, and successfully at that!
Islay Community Energy Benefit Society is pleased to report that late December saw the 1,000,000th Kilowatt Hour produced by the turbine. The overall performance has been above anticipated, with December being the best month so far, due to the exceptionally windy weather we have been experiencing and despite the turbine being out of action for a few days after an electrical storm – it’s an ill wind as they say.
The year’s performance can be seen here.
Accreditation means that we can now claim the Feed in Tariff for the electricity generated since the first official generation in February. The turbine has performed very well since its handover to IECBS at the end of April, and despite a few glitches has almost caught up with the projected first year generation, which shows how windy it has been. You can track the performance at
https://islayenergycbs.com/community-wind-turbine/turbine-performance/
The Board will be meeting in early February to start discussing the share dividend and the first payment to the Community Fund. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous, and windy, New Year.
At the end of term recently, 15 pupils from Bowmore Primary 5/6 visited the Community Wind Turbine along with their teacher, Lynne MacDougal. Malcolm Ogilvie, vice chair of Islay Energy Community Benefit Society was there to answer some very intelligent questions, and took the photo. If any other groups would like to arrange a visit (and sorry but you cannot climb up it!) please contact Geunda Young on 01496 301413 or email info@islayenergycbs.co.uk.
The turbine was also producing power throughout its testing and handover period – around 190,000 Kwh in total – and we shall shortly be receiving the income due to us for that period. Regular quarterly reports on the turbine’s performance will appear in a dedicated corner of this website as from July.
As we have now been trading for 4 months, we are able to start the process of Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) Certification with HMRC on behalf of those investors who indicated that they wish to claim it. Claims for relief can be made up to 5 years after the first 31 January following the tax year in which the investment was made (2013/14). Further information on the scheme may be found on the following link – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-enterprise-investment-scheme-introduction/enterprise-investment-scheme. We will contact the relevant investors individually in due course.
The graph First production shows the first five day’s generation from the turbine.
As you can see the output is (frequently) limited just now to about 190Kw due to a faulty inverter – we await its replacement at which point we should really start to generate.
As of yesterday morning there was a total production of 13.4MWh, worth some £3,000, so it is a start. I hope to bring you monthly generation figures.
As of about an hour ago the turbine is running properly again and has now restarted its 120 hour acceptance test period before it gets formally handed over – should be interesting given the wind speed predictions for the next week!
After what seemed to be innumerable and lengthy delays for all sorts of reasons the turbine is today fully up and running! ( spoke too soon – turbine tripped out after a few hours and now it will be Wednesday before the team can get a ferry back)
The turbine was energised on the afternoon of Saturday 13th December and exported its first power power to the grid for a short period. There are some loose ends to be tied up in regard to the controller installation, and the turbine requires this for continuous operation, but the commissioning certificate will be signed off by Enercon as of 12th Dec. It should be continuously running in the next week.
We have also been advised this week that the subsea cable from Jura to the mainland has now been repaired and supply reinstated to the islands, so the wind turbine should be able to export to the grid at its 330kW capacity.
Islay Energy Community Benefit Society 