European Regional Development Funded Project
BACKGROUND
Infinite Renewables Group Ltd (IRGL) has secured funding to develop innovative energy centres with the aim of offering business communities in Wales, integrating renewable and low carbon generation technologies with battery storage across a micro grid network. These local energy centres are known as the GSCS (Generation Storage Consumption Supply) project.
The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) has allocated grant funding of £8.9million to IRGL to build up to seven local energy centre schemes in South and West Wales including the Valleys, to provide low carbon and renewable energy to the local industrial communities.
Each energy centre scheme will contain a mix of technologies which includes wind turbines, solar photovoltaics (solar PV), Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and battery storage, connected to each community by a private network. The total CAPEX for the schemes is £14.4m with £8.9m being provided by the ERDF with match funding of £5.5m (38% of total CAPEX) from their funding partner Albion Community Power.
IRGL have identified the energy intensive consumers operating at each of the proposed energy centre locations. These primary high energy consumers at the industrial settings provide the base load for each energy centre, with the ability to consume all the generated heat and power in phase 1 of each development. Each energy centre has the potential for expansion to match community consumption in the further phases 2, 3 and 4 of the developments.
Llantrisant Business Park has been accepted as one of the proposed sites for the ERDF Project, with the Royal Mint identified as the primary energy intensive user for phase 1 of the energy centre development.
LOCAL ENERGY CENTRE PROPOSAL
The proposal is to build a local energy centre on the land adjacent to the Royal Mint and supply heat and power ‘over the fence’ to the Royal Mint site. The energy centre installation would include:-
- ADEPT/Energy Centre Power Management
- Micro grid
- Heating Network
- 2 MW Combined Heat and Power Unit
- 8 MW Battery Storage
- > 2 MW ground mounted solar photovoltaics
The local energy centre will be fully funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and match funding provided by Albion Community Power.
THE ROYAL MINT
Karl Rigby, Energy & Electrical Manager from The Royal Mint had this to say about the proposed project:
“To achieve our sustainability goals at The Royal Mint, we had no option but to embrace change and adapt to the use of technology, lowering energy costs and reducing our carbon footprint. When working with a local partner such as IRGL we have the confidence and security that our energy demands will be well catered for without worry of adversity coming from volatile future Energy markets. This is an exciting partnership adding to our recent success with Delilah, we are delighted to collaborate further with the Local Energy Centre and support a sustainable future for us and our neighbours”