Ripple Energy wind farm?

Raxiel

mgfvvc said:

Screwdriva said:

If you have rooftop PV, Flux may be your best bet.

Flux looks like it needs batteries as well as PV?

No, they simply say they designed it with batteries in mind. They're not required to switch to it, and the rates are still better even without one.

Screwdriva

mgfvvc said:

Flux looks like it needs batteries as well as PV?

I'm on Flux and have no battery. As long as you don't have heavy evening usage (4-7pm), it is the most lucrative tariff available. 

Raxiel

Screwdriva said:

mgfvvc said:

Flux looks like it needs batteries as well as PV?

I'm on Flux and have no battery. As long as you don't have heavy evening usage (4-7pm), it is the most lucrative tariff available. 

And even then it's pretty forgiving, we used 22% of all our May import 4-7 and we still came out ahead because the daytime rate is just so much better. Of course it helps that the sun shone long and bright enough that we got 7% of our export during the same period.

JKenH

I’d not heard much about Kirk Hill recently but came across this article from June 28th reporting on a substantial financial injection from Virgin Money. It is not clear whether this is in the form of a share purchase or loan but presumably those who are members of the scheme will have more information on the terms of the deal.

Virgin Money funds Ripple Energy’s third consumer-owned project

Financial services company Virgin Money has granted a £14 million financial package to support Ripple Energy’s 18.8MW consumer-owned wind farm in Ayrshire, Scotland.

https://www.current-news.co.uk/virgin-money-funds-ripple-energys-third-consumer-owned-project/

dharm999

The article is mixing up the wind farm project with the solar farm project which opened for reservations earlier this year.  The wind farm one was last year, maybe even the previous year, don’t remember exactly.  Concerns me a bit as I thought the project was already fully funded

Exiled_Tyke

dharm999 said:

The article is mixing up the wind farm project with the solar farm project which opened for reservations earlier this year.  The wind farm one was last year, maybe even the previous year, don’t remember exactly.  Concerns me a bit as I thought the project was already fully funded

The prospectus states that they will use either debt or corporate equity to fund the shortfall. So they never expected private investors to make up the total. The same happenend with the Kirk Hill wind farm project.  Having some debt in the mix should (in theoary) improve the potential returns to private investors. 

This is nothing like a direct comparision but does look at some of the effects of using signficant amounts of debt in the wind energy sector. https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/ideas/2023/04/20/an-investment-trust-keeping-up-with-inflation/   

JKenH

dharm999 said:

The article is mixing up the wind farm project with the solar farm project which opened for reservations earlier this year.  The wind farm one was last year, maybe even the previous year, don’t remember exactly.  Concerns me a bit as I thought the project was already fully funded

Are you sure about that? Virgin Money themselves refer to Kirk Hill. 

“The deal will facilitate the construction and operation of eight turbines at the Kirk Hill Wind Farm near Girvan”

https://www.virginmoneyukplc.com/newsroom/article/ripple-energy-wind-farm/

Martyn1981

dharm999 said:

The article is mixing up the wind farm project with the solar farm project which opened for reservations earlier this year.  The wind farm one was last year, maybe even the previous year, don’t remember exactly.  Concerns me a bit as I thought the project was already fully funded

Yeah it's all a bit odd. The article says third project, but that's the solar park. The second was Kirk Hill.

And it says the purchase priority window was in Feb 2023, but that was the date to reserve a place on the solar scheme.

Regardless, as ET points out, the private investors are only part of how these schemes are funded.

dharm999

Exiled_Tyke said:

dharm999 said:

The article is mixing up the wind farm project with the solar farm project which opened for reservations earlier this year.  The wind farm one was last year, maybe even the previous year, don’t remember exactly.  Concerns me a bit as I thought the project was already fully funded

The prospectus states that they will use either debt or corporate equity to fund the shortfall. So they never expected private investors to make up the total. The same happenend with the Kirk Hill wind farm project.  Having some debt in the mix should (in theoary) improve the potential returns to private investors. 

This is nothing like a direct comparision but does look at some of the effects of using signficant amounts of debt in the wind energy sector. https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/ideas/2023/04/20/an-investment-trust-keeping-up-with-inflation/   

Virgin Money are investing in Kirk Hill, not the third solar project.  Weren't Bruntwood the private equity partner for Kirk Hill, in which case why the need to have Virgin Money involved.  The share prospectus said that the aim was to have the project 70% funded by private individuals and 30% by investors, but I think in the end as Bruntwood have around 42%, as private individuals only got to 58% of the required funds.  I was under the impression, mistakenly it looks like that, the project was 100% fully funded, it appears not, in which case what impact does this new debt of £14m have on the financial projections for Kirk Hill?  At current base rates, its nearly £1m of interest a year.

dharm999

Looking back through emails, they did say 30% of the funding would be via a finance option, but that should have been around £7.2M, so why borrow £14m, nearly double the original amount that was identified as requiring finance?