FWP is committed to facilitating the addition of renewable energy generation systems at the Park with the objective of the ecovillage being a net exporter. As demand at the Park increases it is necessary for us to partner with others to meet this objective, as well as operating our own generation facilities. As an organisation aiming to promote renewable energy in practical ways, FWP has:
- installed 675kW of wind generation at the Park in 2006.
- granted the addition of 50kW of private PV generation systems at the Park at no cost.
- added its own ‘rent-a-roof’ PV systems on eight properties at East Whins in 2015 with a total installed capacity is 24kW.
- agreed to the installation of a 7kW Tesla Powerwall battery at the Hive in 2018.
- supported a ‘net metering’ arrangement for the Park Ecovillage Trust owned PV array on the Woodside affordable housing development.
Installing Your Own Generation System
For commercial, regulatory and safety reasons, generation systems may only be connected to the Park distribution system with the prior consent of both Findhorn Wind Park Ltd and New Findhorn Directions Ltd.
The total amount of generation capacity connected at the Park is limited by the connection agreement between FWP and Scottish and Southern Energy Networks (SSEN). Regulations mean that a battery with the potential to deliver power to the distribution system (e.g. a Tesla Powerwall) is regarded as a generation source just like the wind turbines and solar PV arrays.
Contact FWP via the technical contact form if you are planning to install any new generation equipment such as PV or a battery that can feed power into the grid. See our technical specification for new generation equipment page for links to the regulations that apply.
Costs to Connect Generation at the Park
We hope SSEN will apply the G99 regulations to the Park with a light touch, but how light is not yet known. Nevertheless, there will be increased administration costs for FWP and these will depend on the technologies and scale of generation involved. There may also be delays in connecting some generating systems.
Unless FWP increases the export capacity to the grid, we will in future lose the ability to add new generation systems – private, as a company and as a community. To be cost effective this export capacity has to be increased in large blocks. An application under the new regulations is expected to cost around £120/kW of increased installed generation capacity. FWP reserves the right to make proportionate connection costs for private generators, though has not done so to date.