Clean Power

Published on February 23rd, 2012 | by Zachary Shahan

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UK’s 1st Employee-Owned Solar Power Plant Installed

February 23rd, 2012 by Zachary Shahan
 
 

The Eden Project has now completed the first known employee-owned solar power plant in the UK, a 50-kilowatt PV array that includes 200 solar panels.

Familiar with the Eden Project? I wasn’t either…. The Eden Project is apparently an educational charity in Cornwall in the UK, and a pretty cool-looking one at that. Here’s a video of the Eden Project if you want to learn more about that before getting on with the news:

“Ebico, the Witney-based social enterprise that is the UK’s only not-for-profit electricity supplier, lent money to a new company that put 200 panels on the roofs of some of Eden’s storage buildings,” the UK’s Carbon Commentary writes.

“Employees are now able to buy shares in the new business and the proceeds of this unique offer will be used to pay back Ebico. Savers putting in as little as £200 each will share in the feed-in tariff income for the next 25 years. Returns are projected to be over 10% per year for small investors.”

For more info on this project or other potential projects like it, as well as an interesting discussion of the UK’s feed-in tariff program, check out the Carbon Commentary post.

Photo via Carbon Commentary

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Zachary Shahan

Tags: employee owned solar, quickies, UK, uk solar energy, uk solar projects

About the Author

Zachary Shahan is the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave, a world-leading green and science news site. He has been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and he has been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, and wind energy since 2009. Aside from his work on CleanTechnica and Planetsave, he's the founder and director of Solar Love, EV Obsession, and Bikocity. To connect with Zach on some of your favorite social networks, go to ZacharyShahan.com and click on the relevant buttons.

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