First green heat share offer sells out ahead of Ethical Investment Week
Solar panels are now a common sight and provide evidence that more people understand how feed-in tariffs work and how they can reduce their bills with micro energy generation. Now Cambridge-company Microgenius, is helping to extend these benefits further to investors by offering a national platform for community shares;and the first share offer to use the service closed successfully.
Emily Mackay is the founder of Microgenius, which launched a few weeks ago. It aims to link people with an interest in sustainable energy with communities that are developing microgeneration projects and simplify the process of buying and selling shares. She has been delighted by the response.
“Small-scale energy generation is becoming more and more common. Microgenius was delighted to support Woolhope Woodheat, a co-operative regenerating neglected woodland to produce fuel for hard-to-heat local buildings.”
“The brilliant thing is that everyone benefits. The woodlands are properly managed by experienced people, local people get a source of affordable wood fuel and investors get a good return on their money. For Woolhope Woodheat the target return of 6% plus potential Enterprise Investment Scheme tax relief, creates an effective return of over 8% gross.
“My own interest in community energy generation came when I found that I couldn’t install my own solar panels. So I started to talk to the people involved in other microgeneration projects and got excited about having a single platform for investors to find community share offers.”
For the past four years, the co-operative sector has outperformed theUKeconomy, demonstrating resilience in difficult economic times and proving that values and principles go hand in hand with commercial performance. More than 5,900 co-operative businesses in theUKcontribute £35.6bn to theUKeconomy and operate across all business sectors.
Microgenius has received an enthusiastic response from key players in the industry including: ethical energy provider Co-operative Energy, and renewable electricity supplier, Good Energy.
Other projects live on Microgenius include a hydroelectric scheme in Sheffield and an urban tree station inManchester– with others in the pipeline.
More information on Microgenius www.microgenius.org.uk
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NOTES FOR EDITORS
Media contacts:
Microgenius
Rachel Holdsworth/Nina Beadle, Holdsworth Associates
PR consultants for Microgenius
01954 202789, nina@holdsworth-associates.co.uk
Microgenius www.microgenius.org.uk
Microgenius is a national not-for-profit website that links people with an interest in sustainable energy with communities that are developing micro-generation projects. It simplifies the process of finding and purchasing community shares in renewable energy projects.
It is the brainchild of Emily Mackay who an MA from Oxford and a decade of business management expertise in the technology and media sectors – in December 2011 she was awarded £10,000 as part of Anglia Ruskin’s Centre for Enterprise Development and Research’s Enterprise Fellowship Scheme.
Renewable energy is on the rise – over 30 green power co-operatives have started since 2008, achieving a community owed generation capacity of 19.6MW. Not only do they generate renewable energy, strengthen communities and increase environmental awareness, they also return a benefit to their members.
Woolhope Woodheat began life as a collaboration between Fownhope and District Carbon Reduction Action Group (CRAG) and Sharenergy Co-operative.
