Ripple Energy unveils record £20m-plus fundraiser for new solar farm
Ripple Energy has raised over £20m for its new solar farm – the largest amount generated by a UK co-operative society for a single green energy project, Morning Wire can exclusively reveal.
The renewable specialist’s latest venture, Derril Water Solar Park, is a proposed 42MW project based in Devon, which will be home to 70,000 panels with the potential to power around 14,000 homes when it is completed in late 2024.
More than 8,800 households have chipped in to become part owners of the solar development – with the share offer closing on 22 May earlier this year.
The exact figure has not yet been finalised, but the total is forecast to be over £20m.
This surpasses the £13.2m raised ahead of its last project, the eight-turbine Kirk Hill Wind Farm in Scotland, which was the previous record fundraise for a co-op.
It is the group’s third project, with Ripple having initially started its part-ownership model with a single turbine in Wales.
Sarah Merrick, chief executive and founder of Ripple Energy, told Morning Wire solar panels were becoming increasingly popular as a supply security option due to soaring fossil fuel prices driving up wholesale costs for consumers last year.
“The knock-on effect in terms of creating an economy that is more resilient and more insulated from fossil fuel price spikes is absolutely huge. Ripple now does that for individual owners – who are protected from the energy price crisis that we’ve been through over the last few years. If you scale that up massively, you can create a much, much more resilient economy, which is great for everyone,” she said.
The fundraiser follows industry certifier MCS revealing there have been a record number of solar power installations this year.
More than 120,000 renewable installations were completed from January to June, according to the latest report from MCS – a 62 per cent jump on this time last year.
Co-op model for solar lures London residents
The government is targeting a ramp up from 17GW to 70GW by 2035, driven by households and large-scale generation farms – as outlined in its security strategy.
Merrick was encouraged by the UK’s investment climate, but called on the industry to continue advancing storage solutions to harness the vast ramp up of renewables.
“Everyone knows that [the] sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. There is a large amount of storage happening but the system will need a lot more storage,” she said.
Customers invest in the construction and generation of consented renewable projects in return for cleaner energy in their personal supply mix.
They buy shares in each project that are then passed on as savings via their suppliers including Co-op Energy (overseen by Big Six giant Octopus), with Ripple also in talks with green energy arm Eon Next and challenger renewables player So Energy.
Ripple forecasts Derril will offer energy users up to 25 per cent in savings on their bills, shielding customers from record wholesale costs driven by soaring gas prices following the domestic energy crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Savings are offered on a proportional basis – if someone buys one kilowatt, they receive the savings generated from one kilowatt of zero carbon energy.
The minimum investment is £25, while the maximum is 120 per cent of a customer’s required overall generation – with the average solar panel set up on people’s homes being around three kilowatts.
This is attractive for households that do not have the capacity for solar panels to be able to invest in renewables and gain a return from the funding – such as energy users living in cities such as London, which make up half their investment base.