Ripple Energy wind farm?

Coastalwatch

Speaking of PPA'a I was listening to a podcast just yesterday on Micro grids and Community cohousing. Amongst other matters was a talk by Co founder and director of Bristol Energy Cooperative, Andy O'brien, during which he mentioned they had set up a thirty year contract with Ripple for supply of some of their energy requirement. So presumably a PPA!

chqshaitan

Just came across this in my travels

https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/2097806-bruntwood-takes-major-stake-in-new-wind-farm-in-sector-first

Exiled_Tyke

chqshaitan said:

Just came across this in my travels

https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/2097806-bruntwood-takes-major-stake-in-new-wind-farm-in-sector-first

This is what Ripple told us: 

The breakdown of the SPV, the entity which owns the project is as follows:

• The equity raise has funded 70% of the project. The remaining 30% of the funding will be from a finance facility.
• The cooperative's share is made up of 5,603 individuals and 18 businesses. It will own 57.6% of the project. That's a raise of over £13m.
• Commercial property company Bruntwood, Kirk Hill's co-investor, will own a 42.4% share
• The finance element will have a separate, longer term power purchase agreement to provide certainty over revenue to the bank and will not affect the member returns.  Once the finance facility has been repaid, members are set to receive additional returns from the excess power being generated.

So it looks like the finance has been well managed so far. Hopefully things go smoothly from here. 

Reed_Richards

"Equity" means shares but my understanding is that you don't get shares.  I continue to find this very confusing.

JKenH

Reed_Richards said:

"Equity" means shares but my understanding is that you don't get shares.  I continue to find this very confusing.

I suppose they use the term loosely as there is normally no obligation to repay an equity investment. Investors are in effect unsecured creditors. 

Exiled_Tyke

Reed_Richards said:

"Equity" means shares but my understanding is that you don't get shares.  I continue to find this very confusing.

They are shares per Ripple's Rules. It's just that the rights and returns are unusual to say the least. 



"13.1 The shares of the Society shall be of a nominal value of £0.01. The shares shall be fully paid prior to issue, shall carry no right to interest, dividend or bonus and shall be forfeited and cancelled on cessation of membership from whatever cause.

13.2 The shares of the Society shall be divided into A Shares and B Shares, and shall be equal in all respects save that only A Shares shall be Withdrawable, in accordance with the terms of Rule 17.1. B Shares shall be non-Withdrawable. Subject to not exceeding any maximum shareholding permitted by law from time to time a Member may hold either A Shares or B Shares only, or a combination of both.

13.3 On the admission of any Person to membership of the Society they shall be allotted such number of A Shares or B Shares (as applicable) as shall equate to the amount of their Wattage Amount multiplied by 100."

Reed_Richards

What is the Wattage Amount? Is that your annual usage in kWh x1000/(365.25*24) which, if I worked this out correctly, would be your power consumption averaged over the year.  In my case that is about 940 W so I would presumably have got 94000 shares. 

QrizB

Reed_Richards said:

What is the Wattage Amount?

When you buy into a Ripple co-op your share of the wind farm is measured in watts.

For example the first project has a single 2.5MW turbine, so there are 2,500,000 watts each owned by one of the members.

Reed_Richards

So if there were 5000 members and they each paid the same amount they would each own 500 Watts?  But there is some limit based on your annual usage which is where my figure of 940 W would be taken into account?  

QrizB

Reed_Richards said:

So if there were 5000 members and they each paid the same amount they would each own 500 Watts?

Yes, that's the idea.

But there is some limit based on your annual usage which is where my figure of 940 W would be taken into account?  

Per the offer document, Graig Fatha was sold on the basiis that each watt of turbine would generate 2.67 kwh/yr. If your annual consumption is around 8200kWh/yr, you could match it by buying 3070 watts of the turbine.

The cap we discussed earlier was that Ripple limited investors to buying enough watts to match 120% of their typical annual consumption. In your case that would be 3680 watts.

Kirk Hill used a similar approach although the numbers were different (working out as each watt generating 3.2 kWh/yr).

I've also noticed that Graig Fatha was a more conservative estimate; 2.67 kWh/yr was a P75 estimate, while 3.2 kWh/yr for Kirk Hill is a P50 estimate. Graig Fatha is 75% likely to outperform the proposal; Kirk Hill, only 50%.