REACT were keen to help the Roseland reduce its carbon footprint by deploying renewable energy.  We felt that there was a great opportunity with lots of agricultural barns which could have solar PV panels fitted to them. This would generate electricity efficiently during the day but not at night. Currently our food waste goes to the incinerator but Anaerobic Digestion (AD) can be used to produce bio-methane which can be stored during the day and put through a generator to produce electricity at night. 

A combination of PV and AD could produce a consistent source of renewable energy for the region.

The Local Generation Tariff is a government scheme to encourage electricity to be used close to where it is generated. If you use power from a renewable source that is on the same substation as your home it is more efficient as power is not converted to higher voltages and transmitted up country. To encourage people to use this scheme if you use local generated electricity you can get a substantial saving on your electricity costs. It can also mean the renewable energy scheme can sell its power at a higher rate, making smaller systems viable. 

REACT were successful in an application to the Rural Communities Energy Fund (RCEF) for a feasibility study to explore the solar and AD further. We are currently assessing barns and other buildings across the Roseland for PV installations and quantifying food and farm waste to calculate how much bio-methane could be produced.

If you have a barn that might be suitable for PV or have food or farm waste which could be used in the AD plant please do get in touch with REACT so we can explore these options further. Please email richard@react.org.uk

Further information is available here.

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