Bishop’s Castle Community Wind Energy project
July 2026 update
In the last newsletter we said we’ve been looking for ways to produce more electricity from our wind turbine, to create more revenue and make the scheme viable. We have now concluded that we will need a turbine with a bigger ‘wingspan’ and a slightly taller tower than the one that we have planning permission for.
The turbine that we are considering will be able to produce up to twice as much electricity per year as the original. This means at least £100,000 more revenue each year, and the equivalent of powering about 500 more homes. It also means that, over the lifetime of the turbine it should contribute over £2-4 million more into the Community Benefit Fund that will benefit local projects. Additionally we can provide more low-cost electricity locally, via the Energy Club.
We’ll need to go back to the planners for a new planning permission for the bigger turbine, but we hope to get permission quite quickly, and hopefully have an operating turbine as early as 2028. The new turbine would have a tip height of 105m or 110 m, compared to 80m for the original. And the wingspan would increase from 60m to 90m.
This is a bigger turbine, and the trade-off of visual impact vs earning power has been a difficult one for us to consider. We plan to compensate by moving the turbine slightly lower down the hillside, and also a little further along the field, in order to make it a bit less prominent and further from town and from nearby properties. We have already chosen to site it less than ¼ of the way up the hillside, to avoid it being visible for miles around.
We hope the BC and surrounding community will continue to support this project: even though it has grown in size, it has also grown in ambition for the contribution it will make in cheaper, green electricity and in financial returns to the community. Before submitting the application we will hold a public meeting to discuss the changes at 7.30 p.m on Monday, 14th September at the BC Town Hall. We hope you can join us there!
Finally, we are setting up the Community Benefit Society to run the project and ensure the profits are properly invested in the community, and are looking for volunteers for the post of Secretary. This role will focus on keeping the society on track legally, and helping setting it up. We’d particularly welcome people with not-for-profit administrative experience. Please contact mikejwatkins@hotmail.co.uk if interested.
ENERGY CLUB: AREA COVERED BY BISHOP’S CASTLE SUB-STATION
Green subsidy: a high-return national investment
Wind power has cut £104bn from UK energy costs since 2010, study finds
Research by University College London found that from 2010 to 2023, energy from windfarms resulted in electricity bills being lower by about £14.2bn than they would have been if gas had been needed to generate the same amount of power.
Between 2010 – 2023 energy from windfarms resulted in a saving of about £133.3 bn. This arose from the cut in demand for electricity generated by gas power and not needing to build new gas infrastructure
Over the same period, consumers paid about £43.2bn in green subsidies, levied on electricity bills rather than gas bills.
The net result was a reduction of £104.3bn in UK energy bills over the 13-year period, according to the researchers.
You can read a summary here Wind power savings
DECARBONISED HEAT: A NEGLECTED CHALLENGE IN THE TRANSITION TO GREEN ENERGY
Bishop’s Castle has been pioneering an innovative Community Energy Project for the last four years, in partnership with Shropshire and Telford Community Energy (STCE) and Sharenergy. The team has recently achieved the major milestone of getting planning permission for a wind turbine. The project is also evolving to meet changing conditions in the energy market. STCE’s project lead, Dave Green, explains about the new direction.
We probably all know the main reason for wanting to transition to “green” (renewable) energy: to reduce CO2 emissions and so slow down damaging man-made climate change. With the electricity supply this transition has been low-effort for households: we use what comes into our homes along the mains wires, and leave it to the electricity generators to make the electricity from renewable sources. Using wind turbines and solar farms, generators have been quite good at this, so that over 50% of the electricity we use in the UK is now “green”.
For household heating this is more difficult. We don’t get heat piped directly to our houses, instead we have to create it in the home: by burning gas, wood, or oil: none of these are renewable and all generate CO2. To go green on heat we have to go to the cost and effort of changing our heating system to a heat pump. A heat pump uses electricity in a cost-efficient way by using one unit of electricity to create around 3 units of heat, sucking in heat from the outside air or ground. But it still takes money and effort from householders to make this change for heat.
The idea behind the Bishop’s Castle Community project had been to make the heat transition easier for the community by piping green heat directly into homes.
A wind turbine near town will generate 100% green electricity, to be used to power a very large centralised heat pump, and carry this heat through town to houses in the form of hot water in specially-laid underground pipes. This heat distribution is called a Community Heat Network. The network and the turbine can in part be community-owned, creating a community asset as well as supplying low-cost green heat to the community.
That’s the idea. Unfortunately the Bishop’s Castle project team has recently found that their heat network is currently too expensive to build. Government policy, funding, and contractor costs are not yet fully aligned behind making Heat Networks financially possible. To transition to green heat, a lot of factors and attitudes need to shift, and these shifts have not yet been “joined up” enough by the Government to help most communities achieve it. It will probably take a few more years before that happens: until then the town’s heat network plans are on hold. So the Bishop’s Castle team is changing its focus in the short-term to the turbine half of the project. In June they successfully gained planning approval for a 900 kW turbine to be sited on a hill near town, thanks to widespread support from the community as well as the town and county councils. The turbine should produce the electricity typically used by up to 700 homes. Over its 30-year life it will be a very cost-effective source of green electricity. The team will now be building the business case to attract funding for the turbine, and exploring how to connect local customers to the turbine’s output, but it will also be hoping that future Government policy changes enable the delivery of of decarbonised Heat in rural, off-gas-grid towns as effectively as decarbonised electricity.
For further details contact Dave Green dave@sharenergy.coop or climateaction@lightfootenterprises.org
BC HEAT NETWORK FEASIBILITY STUDY
You can read the completed report on the Heat Network Feasibiity Study here . . .
BC Heat Feasibility stage2 v4h 2.2.26
Bishop’s Castle carbon footprint: why we need this project
The average Carbon Footprint per household in Bishop’s Castle is about 9% higher than the national average. However, other markers: Consumption, Food and Waste are considerably lower. The stand-out difference is seen in the graph at the link below where energy use in Bishop’s Castle’s homes is 45% higher than the national average. The reason for this is that Bishop’s Castle is not on the Gas Grid and the majority of homes have to use oil, wood and even coal for their heating and hot water. Combined with this is the fact that the Town has many old and hard-to-heat homes that are not suitable for Heat Pumps. This project is the best way to enable more affordable and sustainable energy for Bishop’s Castle.
Impact | Community carbon calculator (impact-tool.org.uk)
How do Heat Pumps works
Here’s a useful article from the Guardian which explains how they work How a Heat pump works
The results of the survey can be seen here BC heat & Wind, Details of 122 survey responses
The full Report can be seen here 1_H&W Planning submission v2b 8.10.21
If you are interested in helping with this project, or want more information, please e-mail <climateaction@lightfootenterprises.org>
You can see the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ here BC Heat & Wind Initiative FAQs 2023 v4
