West Dean Centre in Bream goes solar-powered thanks to REPF capital grant
The West Dean Centre in Bream now runs on green electricity most of the year round thanks to funding from Forest of Dean District Council's Rural England Prosperity Fund Community Infrastructure Capital Grant scheme, which was administered by GRCC.
A former Victorian village school, the West Dean Centre building belongs to West Dean Parish Council which has its office there, and the hall is almost constantly hired out to local users and groups.
Parish Clerk Kim Carpenter, left, and Phil Holland, Deputy Clerk, right, at the West Dean Centre in Bream
The parish council applied for the grant to reduce the building's carbon footprint and its running costs. Lower energy bills mean that the parish council will be able to afford to keep the rental charges lower for the many community groups which use the building every day.
"If not for the grant, we'd have had to wait another two or three years to accrue enough budget to install the solar panels and battery," said Phil Holland, Deputy Clerk of West Dean Parish Council. “It means that for hall users the rental fees can now stay lower, otherwise we’d have had to think about increasing the rents.”
With the help of the REPF Community Infrastructure Capital Grant, West Dean Parish Council were able to install 9.8KW of PV panels and 13KW/h of battery storage. The total cost was around £19,000, out of which the grant paid approximately £10,000 and the parish council paid the rest from its own funds.
Two arrays of PV panels were installed on the rear, south-facing side of the Victorian building.
The 13KW/h solar battery is in a cupboard inside the building
“The system is set up so that when there’s power in the battery, the building runs on the power from the battery rather than power from the grid," said Kim Carpenter, Parish Clerk. “It’s incredibly easy to monitor via an app - I can even look at each individual panel to see what it is producing, and the installer can monitor them too."
Kim and Phil can use a phone app to see how much electricity the solar system is generating, and to produce reports for the councillors.
Kim can use the monitoring app on her phone to look at figures for how much electricity the system is producing in real time, and how much electricity has been produced in total or over a particular period.
“It’s really handy because the app can produce a report on energy generated each month for the councillors," said Kim.
The installation was done by a local company, who worked very efficiently said Kim: “They were a really good company to work with – clean, tidy, responsive and polite”.
GRCC administered the grant scheme on behalf of Forest of Dean District Council, with Kim and Phil being supported by our Grants and Administration Officer Louise Fletcher. "It was simple and straightforward to work with Louise and GRCC," said Kim. "All our questions were answered really quickly and concisely”.