Ripple Energy wind farm?

Petriix

Doh, so only 19% of the total has been raised by individuals, about 27% of the publicly available shares. Not looking so great then. I wonder if there's scope to have a lower number of turbines if they don't get the full amount? 

TCA

Not sure but seeking a finance facility was mentioned if uptake didn't reach 100%. I suspect that's more likely than reducing turbine numbers.

Might just be me but the language around the co-investor always seems a bit vague. "We expect" the co-investor will take up 30%......

paul991

think its a shame they  limit  you to 120% of usage, as with the gas  supply  being limited in near  to medium future Even with increased renewable s available , our use of evs and  electric heating will increase in the  next  few years, so usage is expected to  rise

TCA

If you expect your electricity usage to increase in the next couple of years you're allowed to buy more co-op shares now.

The 120% rule is in line with regulations on microgeneration, to differentiate between domestic use and business use.

smartn2

TCA said:

smartn2 said:

TCA said:

smartn2 said:

I did wonder this myself so contacted ripple. They 48% is of the 70% so almost half of co-op slots gone.

Good progress if that's the case. I had assumed it was 18% of the co-op slots. As a rough calculation, co-op funding required of £24.7m using an average investment of say £2k per customer, requires around 12,350 co-op members. They were only at 2,000 new members last week, so that's a big jump if they're at 6,000 already. Impressive.      

Exact quote as below

'The 48% refers to shares purchased by our new members of the Kirk Hill coop only. 52% of the shares in the coop are available.'

So it does look like good progress. Fingers crossed they can acquire all necessary funding without having to borrow money.

Just listened to last night's webinar on the Ripple YouTube channel and Sarah Merrick confirmed that the 48% quoted included the co-investors. Around 39:30 mins into the recording. A figure of 3,000 members was mentioned at some point.

Somewhat annoyed if that is the case as that directly contradicts what I had in email from them. She skipped over it very quickly.... 

TCA

In practice they're not going to be checking anything if your purchase over all wind farms generates less than 7,000 kWh per year. Only then they'd ask to see your electricity bill or ask for proof that your usage will increase. e.g. you've just bought an EV or had a heat pump installed.

Still plenty shares available if you want to buy more.

chqshaitan

Hi All,

Just watched the latest webinar, and it has clarified what happens to credits, and basically because your electric company has purchased the electricity from ripple, you will get a corresponding credit on your bill.

It has been confirmed that you can ask your supplier for any excess(as if you had set a higher direct debit) and they would pay you back.

QrizB

We all hope energy prices will come down.

Ripple have blogged about how their customers will avoid some of the effects if they don't.

https://blog.rippleenergy.com/howto/wind-farm-ownership-can-protect-you-from-rising-prices-2/

mapaull

I really like this but having been caught out in the past my concerns are:

1. Ripple can sell its shares in the SPV while investors cannot (unless permitted to, and money is in the SPV available for this to happen). This is not a major concern but it does mean that a third party has the potential to buy 30% of the SPV which would probably be enough to vote in any changes it wants to however damaging to investors. (most investors tend to blindly vote for the recommend option).
2. I can find nothing that protects investors from ever inflating management costs in the future, it would have been nice to see a min to max percentage of income range permitted for management. Again there is the potential for management costs to swallow the whole income leaving nothing for investors.

I am no expert or lawyer, so I would welcome the option of others with professional experience on this.  I have learned that if something bad for investors is permitted to happen in the regulations and terms and conditions, then it probably will.  Please, Please correct me if I have it wrong because I would love to invest in this.

TCA

Not sure what you mean by Ripple selling its shares in the SPV - as far as I'm aware they won't own any. But yes, I think an individual can only offload them if someone else in the co-op wants to buy them (after two years). Or maybe the co-op would buy them if there's cash in the pot.  

Regarding voting, if the co-op owns 70% of the SPV then I'm not sure there's an issue, however I'm led to believe that the co-investor will buy any unsold shares at the end of the current share offer, so that raises an interesting point given only 51% are sold so far and that includes the co-investor's 30%. So it wouldn't take much for the co-op to end up with less than half the shares. I think I read something in the offer document which mentioned the option of a refund if the proposition was altered and this was in respect of taking on another co-investor, which would amount to the same thing.   

I haven't seen anything regarding a cap on the management fee but Ripple could be replaced by another agent - although that brings us back to voting shares and the co-op having the power to do so. Maybe worth taking these points up with Ripple via the online chat function unless somebody else knows the answers.