Funded by DECC

How this came about
The application for this scheme was submitted by Permanent Housing Co-operative, we are a small, fully-mutual housing coop near the village of Llanrhaeadr. As a group we are concerned with sustainability and affordable housing and are interested in permaculture and other design strategies towards making communities more resilient and sustainable.

We are doing everything we can to make our property at Pen Y Lan, Cefn Coch as energy efficient as possible. We are installing a new wood-fired heating system, solar thermal technology to heat water as well as a 4kw instalation of national grid linked solar PV. to generate clean electricity as part of the Feed In Tarrif scheme.

One thing we really need to do and cannot afford at this stage is solid wall insulation. Our house is a mix of 600 year old timber frame farmhouse with a modern breeze block extension, neither of which is properly insulated.There are lots of interesting new material available to insulate old buildings in keeping with their design but that can be expensive to both buy and install.

Research into this challenge led us to the LEAF grant scheme, which encouraged us to link with our local community to help develop awareness of these kinds of issues and their possible solutions.

Via the grant scheme we can get some help to insulate our cooperatve house and are encouraged by the grant to develop community links to help spread the benefit of the scheme.

To this end we have undertaken to facilitate this project which has the following objectives:

• Free energy efficiency audits on 10 homes in Llanrhaeadr
• To offer a public information meeting, on available technologies and strategies to save energy and money – this was on 1st March in the Wynnstay Arms hotel. You can download the home energy saving presenation here
• We have given away 20 smart devices to give away that measure your home energy consumption, and therefore help you save enrgy and money
• Feasibily study for a community owned energy generation facility.
  Being Llanraheadr it seems most likely that a community owned hydro electric installation would be our best opportunity to generate power from local resources. This would give the potential to create revenue for the local community by selling power onto the national grid. Putting together such a scheme is potentailly complicated and would require full investigation. The project offers £6,000 to fully evaluate such a scheme
• Feasibility study on our new community hall. Current plans for the new village hall include an oil fired central heating system. This project will allow a full study to be done on the potential of installing as effiecient system as possible or even a renewable powered system such as wood/ biomass instead. The generation of clean energy would attract a grant via the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, which would create an income for the village hall. This study has been undertaken by Dulas Ltdof Machynlleth, who are market leaders in this field
  

  Home energy expert Nicole Solomons presenting at public meeting in Ysgol Llanrhaeadr

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• Hold a public meeting to share the outcomes of the project and to discuss possible ways forward. this took place in Llanrhaeadr YM Primary school on 29th March.
• Click on here for a Slideshow of the event

Permanent Housing Cooperative Limites are working with local sustainability specialists Sector39 and Sustainable Buildings – independent energy consultants from corris, near Machynlleth to deliver this project.