Corwen is aiming to be one of the greenest towns in Wales by launching a project aimed at cutting electricity bills and making money for renewable energy providers, and the community.
The town already has its own community hydroelectric project fed from the Pen y Pigyn reservoir, but is now looking to sign up 60 local households to the Corwen Energy Local (CEL) scheme.
The scheme, run by South Denbighshire Community Partnership, will enlist stakeholders with their own distributed generating capacity, including owners of solar panels as well as other systems able to feed power into the grid.
That power would be added to the energy generated by the town’s hydroelectric power plant.
At the same time homeowner, many of which experience fuel-poverty, could save up to £300 a year from their electricity bills.
Some of the profits from the scheme will be channelled into a special fund which could provide £2000 a year for local community projects.
Wales’s national community energy project, Energy Local Cic, is showing savings of 10-30% for households in Bethesda, where it launched its first scheme, and experts believe similar returns could be expected in Corwen.
South Denbighshire Community Partnership chief officer Margaret Sutherland said: “It’s very exciting for Corwen to be at the forefront of a scheme like this and we’re already showing the way with the community hydro project which will be one of the partners in this scheme.
“Research we have carried out has shown there are real issues with rural and fuel poverty in Edeyrnion and we hope this is the start of addressing that.
“Corwen can become a model for others to follow as the town develops into a hub of renewable energy and there is scope for this to be extended in the future.
“The area is a real hotbed of green energy with the windfarms being built just up the road on the Denbigh Moors.”
Residents of Corwen and the surrounding villages of Glyndyfrdwy, Llidiart y Parc, Carrog, Cynwyd, Gwyddelwern, Bryn SM and Bryneglwys will be eligible to sign up with Energy Local Corwen and a meeting is to be held in the town at Canolfan Ni on Thursday, 16 January, at 19:00.
The Corwen hydro project which is a partner in CEL generates electricity at a turbine house in the town centre driven by the Nant y Pigyn and Nant Cawrddu streams above Corwen to generate 55 kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to supply up to 40 homes a year.
Over its 40-year lifespan of receiving government feed-in tariffs it is estimated that the project will generate £1.2m with £120,000 going directly to community benefit for local organisations and good causes.
The scheme is publicly owned and it is also payback time for them after an issue of £1 shares raised £318,000, over half of them bought locally, to fund the project which was developed by rural regeneration agency Cadwyn Clwyd.