Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network (WREN) based in Wadebridge,

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, is a grass roots social enterprise aiming to transform the area into the first solar powerered and

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

powered town in the UK. The group plans to install 1 MW peak capacity of

solar panels A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

; with ten installations already in place and another ninety planned they hope to generate at least a third of its electricity from solar and wind power by 2015. The WREN Steering Group consists of residents, councillors from

Cornwall Council Cornwall Council ( ), known between 1889 and 2009 as Cornwall County Council (), is the local authority which governs the non-metropolitan county of Cornwall in South West England. Since 2009 it has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary ...

and Wadebridge Town Council, together with representatives of the Wadebridge Chamber of Commerce. The scheme could also generate £450,000 a year for the town with money coming from a

Feed-in tariff A feed-in tariff (FIT, FiT, standard offer contract,Couture, T., Cory, K., Kreycik, C., Williams, E., (2010)Policymaker's Guide to Feed-in Tariff Policy Design National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy advanced renewable tariff, ...

which offers a premium price for renewable energy. The county council has granted planning permission for four new solar farms and sent plans for a further five out for consultation. In February 2012 the WREN project was awarded £68,000 as part of the coalition Government's Local Energy Assessment Fund and in May 2012 won an award for Best Third Sector Business in the 2012 Cornwall Business Awards. In 2013 Stephen Frankel (chairman of WREN) was named South West Sustainable Energy Champion at an award ceremony in Bath.

References

External links

Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network
{{Solar power in the United Kingdom Renewable energy in England Renewable energy organizations

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Environmental organisations based in the United Kingdom Wadebridge