Your community, Your future

Green Energy Nayland (GEN) is a community enterprise that aims to bring renewable energy to the local area. We think it is important that;

• there is an increase in the use of renewable energy sources
• we increase our energy independence
• everyone be able to participate in the benefits arising from the Government Feed in Tariffs, not just those with the money to install their own system. Our minimum investment is just £250.
• everyone in the community can take part in reducing our overall carbon footprint

Colchester Community Solar Farm

Our most exciting and ambitious project to date was launched today.

We have the opportunity to own a section of a solar farm that is about to be build at Birch Airfield. The site has grid connection and planning permission for a total of 6.7MW of capacity but recent changes to Feed in Tariff rules limit the main developer to 5MW on this site.

We aim to raise between £500,000 and £1.5M to use as much of the spare 1.7MW as funds allow.

Please go to our Colchester Community Solar Farm page for more information and to download the prospectus for the GEN share offering associated with this project.

15th April 2015

Ferrier's Barn Day Centre

Our second successful project was completed in August 2012 at Ferrier's Barn Day Centre, Bures. The system capacity is 9.6kWp and will provide a large proportion of the electricity needs as the barn only operates during the daytime.

Unfortunately the August review of the Feed in Tariff, in particular the reduction in the term to 20 years made it impossible to proceed with an installation at Bures Primary School.

More information can be found on the Bures Projects page.

Nayland Primary School

Our successful first project was completed with a formal opening ceremony on 11th May 2011. In the first year of operation we have saved an estimated £1,000 for the school while also generating an income of over £4,000 - this means we are able to pay our members a very healthy level of interest on their investment.

The installation consists of 84 panels with a peak capacity of 15.54kW; the chart below shows a summary of the generation recorded and more details can be found by following the link to Sunny Portal on the left. This shows that even on a winters day we can generate enough electricity for all the school's needs as long as the sky is relatively clear.

On a clear day day in the summer months we generated more than 100kWh, with the excess being exported to the grid to be used by surrounding houses. The chart below gives a monthly summary of our generation;