Kelvin

Sounds like envy on behalf of the two married councillors

They aren’t shares in the traditional sense in that the value can increase or decrease. You’ll get back whatever they cost as far as I have read (they sell your share to someone else) The benefit is cheaper electricity. If the wholesale price increases and remains high the benefit is greater if the wholesale price collapses then there may be next no benefit. I don’t know what happens if it drops below the cost price.

You can leave the scheme and get your capital back.

Sure but their 20,000 households is likely based on industry sizing for wind farms. They aren’t likely to make the number up. It’s the least important thing to consider before investing anyway unless your reasons for investing are more altruistic.

I understand the scepticism but I don’t think it’s the scam some seem to be suggesting. I do think they are trying to do something different with the right intentions. However, I agree that a 25 year payback is likely to see it go insolvent at which point you lose your money. But all investments carry a risk and this is an investment if somewhat less traditional.

Why does that matter? All you care about is that your circa £3000 investment buys you your electricity at the wholesale price less the cost to produce it albeit you get paid the difference as a credit. I too am interested but I think I’ve decided not to and will take the £3600 and find some tangible way to invest it in the build to either reduce our usage or increase our PV size.

Why would you expect there to be 20,000 shareholders? It doesn’t work like that. Firstly you can purchase shares up 120% of your electricity usage. Secondly there is another Company involved that will own circa 30% of the shares with the co-op owning the remaining 70%. Therefore they need enough individuals to be willing to front up the money to cover 70% of the needed investment which they said is about £24 million. That suggests the 4600 cooperative owners are investing circa £3600 each.

If you read their website they say they manage it and the cooperative owns the wind farm which probably explains the numbers in their accounts. If what you are saying is right, in that someone else actually owns the wind farm, then they are lying on the website. The cooperative rules are approved by the FCA. The terms of which are on their website but it’s not regulated by the FCA so you aren’t protected. Having read the business documents available on their website I can tell you should the cooperative suffer insolvency investors would likely lose their money. I’m not sure why they couldn’t answer your question when it’s clear in their documentation under risks.

They can provide a house anywhere in the UK and have done a few abroad. The main issues we have are: 1. Their communication is poor. Days can go past with no response and you can’t get them on the phone. 2. Their attention to detail is poor. I’ve lost count of the number of errors I’ve spotted. 3. We are months behind where we should have been and it’s because of them and their partners. e.g. 11 weeks for SE report after being told it would be 5 weeks. Planning and warrant were pretty much achieved within the published timelines. They aren’t the cheapest but I couldn’t tell you how that directly compares to other timber kit companies. They have prices on their website but that’s a guideline. Ours was dearer but we made it 20m2 bigger which adds a lot of cost and all the windows are 3G including rooflights and we added a window to the flat roof section. We love the final design though and it’s exactly what we wanted. Their floorplans make full use of the space so there’s no feature staircase and grand hallway for example. We’ve also visited a few of their houses and like the finish that can be achieved albeit that’s down to your builder really.

It’s HH Longhouse we’re building and it sailed through planning. HH have a lot of success getting their designs through planning. Not sure I could recommend HH as a company to deal with though as we’ve found them hard work. I don’t know whether that’s typical and the others are much the same though.

Planners in Scotland will happily allow white render. The Scottish white house cottage or farmhouse is common for example. The corner detail is just that a detail and common enough in what was once called exec detached houses. If you ever drive to Pitlochry via A924 about half along up on the hillside you’ll see these two houses. The one on the left is a 19th cottage and the one on the right was built in 2010 as a SIPs timber kit.

Bloody hell. Congratulations on achieving this but what a waste of time and money. The finished house will be all the more enjoyable for winning this battle.

They talk about how it’s structured on their website. Ripple Energy act as the managing agent for a ‘reasonable fee’. The cooperative owns the wind farm. As managing agent they take responsibility for the build, maintenance, and managing the partners. The cooperative vote on the managing agent arrangement every 5 years so can vote them out.

I’ve read a few times on here that structural warranties are a waste of time because they are too hard to claim on but a necessary evil if you want to sell your house. How true is this claim difficulty in reality? We used to live in a group of 8 converted barns. The warranty was with Premier Guarantee. Two of the barns made successful claims and one of those made two separate claims the second of which was significant as the owners had to move out for 5 months.

Do you plan on never leaving the house?

Liz Truss

Big mouse holes

Of course it’s subjective. It’s based on my observation. I’ve also started to see people I know change their behaviour about leaving lights on in empty rooms in that they’ve stopped doing it. It’s driven by cost. When energy was cheap folk didn’t care about any of this. Now it’s expensive they do. They probably always should have in reality. I get this attitude from my granny. When it was cold she gave us a candle and when it was really cold she let us light it.

Yes but loads of folk think setting a thermostat to 30oC makes the room heat up faster.

Based on the vast majority of houses I’ve been in. Obviously the elderly or people with ill health will need their homes warmer. Fit healthy people could easily live in a house where the temperature is under 21oC. House temperatures have been steadily increasing for years. I have many friends and family that wear shorts and t-shirts at home in the winter because their houses are so warm albeit that’s changed this year as they’ve reduced the thermostat and wear more clothes at home.

I disagree. Government’s role is to not just tell industry what to do but to make it straightforward and quick to make the investment and create legislation that supports the goals. The oil industry could never have got off the ground without significant Government support.

Welcome and congratulations on a brave project to take on.

I would suggest the best thing most folk could do to reduce heating costs is remove their shitty 80s conservatory.

Sure but the change is spread over 4 years so it’s not the increase in floor area or certainly not just that. I never read the report so don’t know if you can assume an increased floor area either for ‘most’ people. ‘Most’ folk have no clue how to efficiently run their heating systems. Moreover most folk seem to run their houses far too warm. That may well have changed of course due to the energy cost increases. My guess is that people don’t change their behaviour after improving insulation and are more likely to open windows in a too hot room than reduce the heat input in that room. I’ve witnessed this with my sister and BiL. They have 4 degrees and two PhDs between them.

I like the Ripple Energy approach in principle. They are also doing some thermal storage proof of concept designs with Sunamp and will be looking for 100 houses to trial it. I also like what Octopus are doing. They’ve taken the fight to big energy dinosaurs and will force them to change in time. We’ve had an interesting social experiment over the Christmas period. We’ve had a lot of folk stay with us over the last 10 days. They all live in modern houses compared to this old farmhouse we rent. I don’t have any gizmos in the house so no Alexa, Ring doorbells, cameras, etc. The house is poorly insulated so while you can heat it up quite quickly, as it has large radiators everywhere, it doesn’t retain the heat. What everyone has said is that they run their houses too hot.