Our mission
localGen provides advice and resources to local communities looking to develop the community's energy resilience by developing energy-efficiency measures and electricity generation at or close to the point of consumption
Britain can only meet the target set by Government to generate 20% of the country’s demand for electricity by 2020 from renewable sources if there is a substantially greater, and well-coordinated, emphasis on and support for the decentralising of energy generation (microgeneration, or DER) throughout the UK
The target can be met if the government rolls out support for the distribution of energy generation away from central power stations, replacing it with locally-generated, renewable, clean green electricity
The most cost-efficient and rapid method for local generation of electricity is to place solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of homes, farms and business/industrial premises ..
Microgeneration
Microgeneration provides electricity generated at the point, or as close as possible to the point, where it is to be used....in the local community
These Distributed Energy Resource (DER) microgeneration systems are small-scale power generation technologies (typically in the range of 3 kW to 10,000 kW) to provide electricity from renewable fuel sources - wind, solar photovoltaic, hydro, biomass and wind - as an alternative to or an enhancement of the traditional electric power supply
Each installation can be as large or small in capacity as suits the site and its needs.
This task is physically and technically possible ..it only now needs the political will to achieve it
Microgrids
Linking together in each local area, as community wire networks, the micro-installations that generate renewable energy will give rise to microgrids that are independent of the national, centralized, electricity network ..SmartGrids. These Smart Grids will provide for each community resilience to the impact of the coming rises in price and the restrictions of supply by the National Grid... power outages (blackouts) are predicted by industry analysts to become “frequent occurrences” from 2015, or sooner
How is localGen involved ?
localGen is working to inform and assist local communities and individuals in Somerset that have realized the need to become self-sufficient in power and intend to get going to ensure that the power they consume is clean, “organic” power
Advice on suitability of a site for microgeneration is provided as an Appraisal, together with assessment of the specific types of generation to be installed , ie. solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, biomass, ground/air source heat pumps, micro-hydro and micro-wind
We explain to homes and businesses that even if right now is an inconvenient moment to get started in generating a supply of electicity, it's still essential in the meantime to change over to taking supply only from a green electricity supplier
The payment to micro-generators from April 2010 of a FeedIn Tariff (also known as the Clean Energy CashBack) of 43.1p/kWh is causing an uplift in the number of installations across the UK
Local communities are working to get as many solar photovoltaic (PV) installations set up and running as rapidly as possible .. it is an essential part of each community's energy-resilience against coming impacts
