A Green Way to Lower Your Electricity Bills
Three Rivers resident Tim Foley talks about how he has found a reliable, planet-friendly way to save money on electricity bills by investing in a Community Wind Farm…
We bought a wind farm! That sounds like that title of the Matt Damon film about a zoo. Fortunately buying a wind farm (well a little bit of it) was much less risky and a whole lot easier!
I was looking to see what our family could do to get greener and cheaper electricity. A beautiful large oak tree in our garden ruled out solar panels and I don’t think the neighbours would have been thrilled about a giant turbine in the garden.
So I was excited to find out about community wind farms and particularly the organisation Ripple. This is a very smart concept and a professionally-run company. How does it work?
Very briefly, you invest an amount now and that buys you 25 years of actual electricity, which will be generated by the wind project you invest in. The wind farm we now part-own is being built on a hill in Scotland and will be completed next year. The electricity is not free, as the running costs of the farm need to be covered but it translates to a 25-year 25% discount off your bills. How much you can invest is linked to how much electricity you currently use, so families with bigger houses can invest more. This has financial inequality and over-consumption implications but it is a money-saving option for anyone…
On their website, Ripple estimate that the discounts will mean you get all of your invested money back in 14 years and for the next 11 years after that, you benefit from significant discounts, as well as supporting guaranteed green energy. The investment isn’t linked to one address, so if you move the discounts can follow you.
Our motivation was that this enables us to go beyond just using a green energy supplier to actually knowing that the power we use is coming directly from a wind farm that would otherwise not have existed without investment like this. And even better, it allows us to make long term savings on our electricity bills for a very, very long time to come.
It seems as though individual investments can range from hundreds to a few thousand pounds and anyone thinking of doing this should of course read all the details and check reviews. There are lots of other community energy projects that are also worth looking at.
I‘m not an industry expert and I have no link to Ripple aside from having chosen it as my energy supplier. But if you are curious and want to start to investigate your options, check out Ripple at rippleenergy.com.
If you find other exciting community wind projects, email Sustainable Three Rivers at hello@sustainablethreerivers.org and let them know!