Category: News

Additional Share Offer Now Open

Chris BrookLeave a comment
Additional Share Offer
Reading Hydro is opening an additional share offer to raise £170,000

Reading Hydro CBS is opening an additional share offer to help us raise the funds to finish our project

The Board of Directors are pleased to announce significant progress is being made on our site by Caversham Weir, Reading, UK. The main civils construction, carried out by our contractors, Land & Water, has now been successfully completed. The next stages of works include building the Turbine House, the connection cable to the grid, our fish pass and the restoration of the surrounding grounds to their normal state. We’ve been able to make it this far through the support of our shareholders, stakeholders and volunteers, to who the Board passes on its sincere thanks.

However, the project has suffered some cost overruns – this has been primarily brought on by inclement weather, poor ground conditions and the subsequent flooding. We’ve also incurred additional costs with our grid connection work and meeting our regulatory requirements. As such, the Board estimates we need to raise an additional £170,000 to be able to complete our work and start generating electricity. This is where we need your help – our Chair, Sophie, explains further in a video below.

Sophie, Reading Hydro Chair

we need your support

Reading Hydro has decided to run an additional share offer to obtain the funds needed to finish our work. We therefore invite you to support us by getting involved and buying shares in our Community Benefit Society. By doing so, you can help make green energy from the Thames a reality for Reading. Visit our dedicated Share Offer page, where you will find:

  • Further details in our Share Offer Document
  • Our Revised Business Plan
  • An application form to apply, or a link for online applications

We thank you for your continued support.

The Directors, Reading Hydro CBS

The Share offer will close by 5pm, 9TH APRIL 2021

Minimum Target Reached

Stuart WardLeave a comment

We hit an important milestone today when our application went past the minimum amount of £426 K so we are in a position when we can actually start the ordering process. Applications now stand at £435,993 which is 62.3% of the £700,000 total.

Although we still need the remaining £264,007 we still have 3 weeks until the offer closes.

If you have pre-registered but not applied please apply now to close the gap further.

Also come along to our evening meeting on Monday and lunchtime meetings on Tuesday to find out more and get further updates

Nearly at the minimum target

Stuart WardLeave a comment
Confirmed funding as of 23 Jan 2020

We are just short of the minimum target value of £426,000. We have £422,392 committed to the project (60.3% of the £700,000 target), and 22 days left in the offer period. Many thanks to those who have applied, and if you have pre-registered and not applied – get in quick!

November Updates

Leave a comment

Greetings from the Hydro team! We now have a viable financial model and we will be issuing the full public share offer shortly after Christmas. Detailed plans for the Twin Archimedes screws are being drawn up as we speak and we hope to place an order for these as soon as funds have been raised! Construction will hopefully begin early summer 2020 so things to look forward to!

BECOME A PIONEER INVESTOR IN READING HYDRO

Erica PurvisLeave a comment

Announcing the Launch of Reading Hydro Pioneer Share Offer

We’re excited to announce the launch of our Pioneer Share Offer for Reading Hydro CBS. This is an initial investment round to support the early stages, including outline design work to ensure the viability of the project. You can support and invest in Reading Hdyro here!

Our Initial Pioneer Shares

We have got as far as we can supported by initial grants from the Reading Climate Change Partnership and the Department of Energy & Climate Change (now BEIS). All alongside countless hours from the support and work of our wonderful volunteers and growing community (that’s you).

 

Now we need to move quickly to the next stages! The government is ending the Feed In Tariff for renewable energy at the end of March 2019. In order to secure this extra income, essential for the viability for the project, we must register our scheme with Ofgem before then. We are working to achieve all the necessary permissions. In parallel we are commissioning an Outline Design for the project by an experienced contractor.

You can buy into our Pioneer Share Offer to kick start this project work. This will cover project permissions costs and the commissioning of the outline scheme design.

After all this we will be able to do a full design for the project, make our Main Community Share Offer, and build the scheme.

Without the money raised from this Pioneer Share Offer the project won’t happen for years.

All Pioneer Share owners will be members with a vote in our Community Benefit Society, be eligible to have their investment repaid over time once the scheme is up and running, and gain other perks along the way. If the scheme cannot be built the Pioneer Shares will not be able to be paid back.

Your money is at risk if the project fails; your support makes it more likely we will succeed.

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED TO FIND OUT MORE, INVEST IN SHARES, OR SUPPORT IN WHATEVER WAY YOU CAN, THEN PLEASE READ MORE ABOUT OUR PIONEER SHARE OFFER ON CROWDFUNDER.

WE’VE BEAN BUSY

Erica PurvisLeave a comment

It’s been a busy couple of months for Reading Hydro since our AGM at the end of March.

Firstly we want to say thank you to all who joined us there, voted, ate cake and helped us take Reading Hydro forward. Alongside this a huge and overdue welcome to all our new members that joined that evening and since. Apologies for our slow response in sharing more information about what we’ve been up to since then, alongside the different ways you can get involved:

To name a few:

There’s our facebook group where all can share ideas, inspiration and events (whether you’re a member or not). You can also follow and interact on our various social medis platforms, Twitter and Instagram. You can also ping us @rdgHydro or #rdgukHydro and we’ll pick up what you’re sharing (we love anything around the river, on the river, incolving the community, environment and renewable energy).

We’ve been holding monthly action evenings although in the last months have interspersed this with being and taking part at some events andworking on our plans.

As well as this, members can also opt in to join our slack working group communication, if you want to get active on particular topics. A key one at the moment is further publicty and communication support, digital online, graphic design, social media and community building.

Sun and Smiles on Bean Pole Day

No it wasn’t a spelling mistake in the title. Last month we took part in a wonderful yearly event held in the beautiful Caversham Court grounds. Bean Pole day, put on by Reading’s and Berkshire’s EcoNet conservation volunteers.

What is Bean Pole day, I hear you say? Well it’s an opportunity to buy Bean Poles (long thin peices of wood) as well as peas sticks, that you will be able to use to truss your beans and peas to.

Alongside this there were a whole host of local growing and green, ethical groups inlcuding growers from Tilehurst, Friends of the Earth, Global Justice now, the Reading Beekeepers and Food 4 Familes.

” But this seems to be something that would be too good to be true in Reading” – New member 

We had a great time sharing what we’re up to at Reading Hydro as well as welcoming new member to the Community Benefit Society.  A definite event to look out for and attend next year (especially when the sun shines)!

Hydro Field Trip

Members of the team and some of our wider board of experts also undertook a trip to the wilds of Cambridgeshire to visit a hydro scheme under development at the moment at Eaton Socon.

Here they are actually implementing the same VerdErg Venturi Enhanced Turbine Technology that we are looking at implementing in Reading. Like us, the part of the River Great Ouse that it is being implemented in has a low head of 1.4m.

It’s actually being installed right beside The River Mill pub that was the old mill there, so soon the pub will be getting much of it’s electricity from renewable hydro power and in a lovely sort of way, reclaiming it’s original heritage. We can’t wait to see it working later this year.

Planning Planning

The great thing about Reading Hydro is  seeing the different skills and support from our members and team that come forward to help with certain aspects.

Over the last number of Action Evenings, we’d been focusing on planning and structuring the different tasks. Ultimately ensuring that all the activities were documented and the flow of getting to building the Hydro were captured.

Recently we got together and restructured and detailed our planning and now have our Project Control Centre  or PCC, (as all good engineering projects should be filled with acronyms), up and running. Particular thanks to all who have been involved with this. 

Look Out For Our GDPR Communication and Updates

By now you’ve no doubt been unundated by countless emails from organisations, asking you to reconfirm you’d still like to hear from  them, alongside our own.

For those of you who are members, as part of your membership is our communication to you on Reading Hydro and key events such as our AGM, so this additional email is primariliy related to our wider supporters who may not be members. Howevere, it’s quick and easy though to review and update your email details (or even sign up to our newsletter if not already) here.

We look forward to collaborating and sharing more with our growing community.

WORLD WATER DAY 2018

Erica PurvisLeave a comment

Today is World Water Day 2018

It’s a day designated by the United Nations to focus the attention on the importance of water!

As yes, as the saying going ‘Water is Life” 

Sustainable Development Goal 6 commits the world to ensuring that everyone has access to safe water by 2030, and includes targets on protecting the natural environment and reducing pollution.

This years theme is ‘Nature for Water‘, exploring how we can use nature to overcome the water challenges of the 21st century.

So let’s respect it, cherish it, protect it and learn from the energy and life it creates!

Show your water love and take a picture of the water in your life for Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and tag it #rdgukhydro

JUST WHAT IS A COMMUNITY BENEFIT SOCIETY?

Erica PurvisLeave a comment

So you’re not for profit, but not a charity? You’re not a business, but you’ll be looking for investors for the hydroelectric project? People can join as members and vote for directors at your Annual General Meeting, and agree where community funds can go, but you’re not a cooperative or a Community Interest Company, Social Enterprise……

These questions and many more are what we get asked frequently and are even queries we had when choosing the best model to enable Reading Hydro to become a reality and support it thriving in the future.

Why a Community Benefit Society?

Just like a charity we have “Objects” which specify what we do and how we commit to benefiting the community and the environment. Our reason for being!

The objects of Reading Hydro CBS are, to carry on any business for the benefit of the community by:

  1. The development, financing, installation, management, operation, generation, transmission and supply of energy from renewable and low carbon energy sources
  2. The conservation of energy through supporting energy efficiency and energy use reduction.
  3. Returning proportional benefit to the community.
  4. The promotion and awareness of environmental and related issues with support for educational initiatives
  5. Enabling the local and wider community to invest in renewable energy and low carbon generation.

What’s so important about Community focus and involvement?

We are set up for the benefit of the local community and look to achieve this through building a hydroelectric scheme on the river Thames at Caversham to generate clean electricity that can be sold to raise community funds for further projects.

It will take a while to get to this stage. To begin with the scheme will be funded by early stage donations and grants, before it is opened up for public investment, probably through a share offer.

The assets (hydro scheme) and liabilities will be held by the society and once all the shareholders have been paid back the hydro scheme and the profit from it will be for the benefit of the local community.

The assets are locked which means that they cannot be sold for the benefit of the directors or members.

In the initial years we have to pay back our investors, so only a small proportion of the income from selling electricity can go to the community. When investors are fully paid back, all the profit will go to the community. We are looking at generating long-term, sustainable funding here.

Why Membership for £1?

Reading Hydro members elect the directors on the basis of one member one vote: in this respect we are similar to a cooperative, autonomous and controlled by members. Part of becoming a member includes paying £1 for a share. This entitles you to one vote at general meetings, as well as getting involved in our day to day activities as much as you’d like.

Will I be able to invest more?

We are always happy to receive donations, no matter how small, and in-kind support. When we open the hydro scheme for public investment, you will be able to invest more in it, and this investment will earn a small return.

It all sounds great, right? So what are you waiting for? Join us!

For more information on Community Benefit Society you can read about them on the Community Shares website    or on DECC. Alongside this we recently went to an inspiring conference from The Plunkett Foundation, which gave examples of the many forms a CBS can take, from pubs, farms to Whiskey distilleries!