Halton Lune Hydro The biggest community hydro in England
We have received confirmation from Ofgem granting “FIT preliminary accreditation” to Halton Lune Hydro. This means that we will receive the rate applicable on December 31st 2013 of 16.41p per kWh as long as we are generating electricity by December 31st 2015.
We also received some clarification about the status of the grants that we received from Defra and Lancaster City Council in relation to the FIT. The Ofgem email confirms that:
“You may retain any grant made for a purpose:
1) unrelated to purchasing or installing the installation
2) related to mitigating environmental harm
We need to see evidence showing that the drawn down sum matched or was less than the costs associated with 1 and 2 above”
As we are expecting to spend more money on “mitigating environmental harm” (including installing a fish pass and fish screens) than we received in grants we do not expect a problem in retaining all of our grant money and receiving the FIT.
