Robert Owen Community Banking is in the running to win a major UK award for its partnership role in helping a community solar power scheme in Swansea get up and running.
The Newtown-based company stepped in to back the Swansea Community Energy and Enterprise Scheme( SCEES) with £400,000 capital late last year and is now about to have that money repaid.
It is shortlisted in the Effective Partnership Working category of the 2017 Citi Microenterpreneurship Awards which will be presented at a ceremony in Cardiff in March.
ROCB partnered other organisations to beat tight deadlines and ensure an important local green energy project went ahead.
If successful in winning the award, the £20,000 prize will recognise ROCB’s work in funding a scheme to create greener energy for a group of Swansea schools.
The first phase of the scheme, launched in the summer of 2016, involved installing solar panels on the roofs of nine schools and a residential care home in the Townhill and Penderry areas of the city.
The scheme was set up after parents realised solar energy was a cheaper and cleaner alternative.
But Robert Owen Community Banking was approached by SCEES for finance after it became clear that the £400,000 initial capital for the ambitious scheme could not be raised in time.
By the spring of 2016 time was running out to obtain a favourable FIT (Feed In Tariff) to ensure the scheme was locked into a decent guaranteed energy price. So ROCB decided to step in and provide the capital before the window closed and the project became potentially uneconomic.
“Robert Owen Community Banking provides high-risk finance for these types of schemes,” said chief executive Michael Brown, who called the entire project an excellent example of effective partnership.
“By really understanding the market we are prepared to co-risk on a no-win, no-fee basis.
“If the scheme goes down, we take the hit. We were approached and decided to go for it, and so a dream team was formed.”
There followed a race against time to get the project completed by the end of September, involving co-operative working between the SCEES, Swansea City Council, a small solar company, two law firms and Robert Owen Community Banking.
The final solar panel was connected up just two hours before the final deadline.
Mr Brown added: “Five thousand Swansea children are right now reading by the light of green energy. They are learning that they can have a cleaner energy world.
“The schools have halved their energy costs. Robert Owen Community Banking will be repaid by the shares that the parents and local community are buying into their successful scheme.
‘Highly-successful’ share issue
“The partnership created strong bonds, huge levels of mutual trust, a total reliance on each other to deliver at every milestone, a massive sense of achievement and a belief that solar and people power is the future.”
The scheme is now about to repay the money borrowed from Robert Owen Community Banking, after the highly successful share issue enabled local people and parents to raise the full £400,000 needed.
“They have done this by putting their savings into the new co-operative (SCEES) and will be rewarded with an annual 6% return.”
If successful at the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards ceremony at the Marriot Hotel in Cardiff on 27 March, Robert Owen Community Banking will gain a significant accolade two years running.
Last year they won the Social and Community Impact Award for their role in financing a hydro electricity scheme at Abergwyngregyn in Gwynedd.
Robert Owen Community Banking supports communities across Wales by providing ethical finance. It is a not-for-profit organisation that secures local investment and public funds to provide loans for businesses, homes and community initiatives.
