Ripple Energy hit the headlines recently with exciting news that the UK’s first ever consumer-owned wind farm is going ahead. In a wide-ranging interview with Seb Berry of elemental, Sarah Merrick, Founder and CEO, discusses the challenges of building the Graig Fatha wind farm, the importance of Welsh government support, and confirms plans for two more Ripple Energy wind farms by the end of 2022.
Q1/ It is obviously brilliant news that you are proceeding with the Graig Fatha wind farm. Do you have any plans for a second wind farm and to what timescale?
Yes, we’re planning on launching a much larger wind farm later in the year. We’re very ambitious about future plans and building on our pilot programme’s success to continue delivering on our mission to make green energy affordable and accessible to everyone. More will be announced later in the year.
Q2/ To what extent is the Graig Fatha project still dependent on the in principle £1.8m loan from the Development Bank of Wales being confirmed? And what’s the timing on that?
The additional funding has been secured and can be drawn down this summer, dependent on several conditions being met. This means we’re ready to go and can start construction of the wind farm immediately. Our turbine has been ordered and construction will begin over the summer.
The project is still open to new members who can still sign up to own a share of the wind farm, and we’re also looking at other equity investments. While it’s great to have the loan as a facility, we may not need to use the full amount, but we will know in a month or so, depending on how many additional members join the Ripple community.
Q3/ How many households have currently bought into the scheme and what’s the cap on the total number that can invest?
So far, 720 households have bought into the wind farm, with Ripple members contributing just over £1.5m to the project. The maximum that the first project can supply energy for is up to 2,000 households, depending on the level of investment from each member equating to their owned portion of the turbine. There’s a huge range of ownership levels: the minimum is £25 and the highest is over £15,000. Members can invest enough to cover 120% of their household’s energy bills; we have set this limit to ensure the renewable energy generated by the project isn’t surplus.
Q4/ Can you say something about the timescale and major challenges involved in getting to this stage after planning permission 3 years ago?
Clean Earth, a professional wind farm developer, planned and developed the wind farm. After securing the project from Clean Earth, we had a lot of work streams going on in parallel, including finalising the agreement with our supply partner, Co-op Energy. We also had to develop the legal structures and get the co-op that would own the wind farm approved by the FCA. Building a web platform that would enable people to become owners of the wind farm has also been another really big piece of work to get this first project functional.
Each work stream had its own challenges, but all were necessary for Ripple to launch successfully. Later projects should be a lot quicker to launch as we have the legal and technology frameworks in place for the future.
Q5/ In the share offer document the indicative timeline was for the wind turbine to be operational by next month. What caused the 8-month slip to December, and is this covid crisis related or is that a factor?
The primary reason for the delay was that it took us a bit longer to fund the project. Part of this was due to Covid-19. Consumer shows, such as Fully Charged Live, that we’d planned to attend were cancelled, which limited our marketing opportunities during our launch phase. The pandemic also had a wider impact on consumer confidence, limiting consumer spending and larger-scale investments.
There’s such a clear desire to build back better post-Covid, and we hope Ripple can be a large part of that.
Q6/ Do you have a view on what size of wind farm is ideal for the customer owned model?
The bigger the better. Ripple is all about enabling people to access economies of scale; we want to pave the way for fairer and more affordable access to green energy and increase the amount of renewable energy on the grid. The bigger the projects the more people can own their own source of green energy.
We’re not precious about the co-op needing to own the whole project, our members could own a part of it alongside other investors.
We’re also aiming to launch an offshore wind farm in the next few years, which would follow a similar model.
Q7/ In general terms, would it be fair to say that this project would not be happening without the positive support of the Welsh government, and to what extent will future projects be similarly dependent on government funding?
The Welsh Government has been amazing, and opening up energy ownership to households in the region is really important for it. The Welsh Government has been a great help to Graig Fatha and we’re really pleased that its involvement allows for the benefits to be realised to fight climate change and fuel poverty in Wales.
Graig Fatha is Ripple’s pilot project and we don’t anticipate future projects to have any Government involvement. Bringing other investment partners on board to our projects allows us to provide our members with access to cheaper and greener energy, helping us to achieve our goals. We are in discussion with potential partners for future projects, but these are in the early stages.
Q8/ What is your view of the UK government’s continued unhelpful position re onshore wind. Or put another way, what does the UK government need to do to encourage an expansion in customer owned wind farms?
It’s crazy that the UK Government has made it virtually impossible for new wind farms, the cheapest, cleanest source of electricity available, to secure planning consent in England. This policy is out of date and out of touch. Most of our customers live in England. They want to act on climate change and see wind farm ownership as a great way of doing so.
We want to work with developers and enable communities to become co-owners of new wind farms. It could give local communities a reason to positively embrace proposed projects. If people in host communities can own wind farms to get their electricity, they have a real reason to not only get the project consented, but to ensure it’s the very best project possible.
Q9/ Where next for Ripple Energy? Any plans to expand your small team?
We’re planning to launch a second, larger-scale wind farm later this year, then hopefully another in early 2022. We are currently looking at other markets including Ireland and Australia and even offshore wind in the next few years. We’re also expanding our pool of supply partners to give our customers a wider choice.
Our team will grow as the company continues to grow. We’re planning to recruit across all work areas from projects, technology and marketing. The whole team is excited about our plans and ambitions for the future.
