23 September 2020: Kate Harrison spoke to Tideswell Environmental Group via Zoom. The Peak District has a number of enthusiastic environmental groups and this was a follow up to previous events that Kate spoke at, in Great Hucklow and Whaley Bridge. About 20 people heard about the Going Carbon Neutral project and there was a lively discussion to follow. The group are keen to explore the potential for community energy in their area.

Here is a photo of Tideswell & District Environmental Group on recent litterpick.

Watch a talk on the 15-year history of the project

26 November 2019: Anyone interested in understanding more about the 15 year history of the project can view a video of Garry Charnock's presentation at the 2019 ACRE conference on 26th November 2019 on this link https://youtu.be/a7jHS0jXxyQ

We are grateful to ACRE for making such a great video.

Board meeting 30 October

We held one of our regular board meetings on 30th October and also welcomed a few guests. Coline Serres, PhD student from the University of Brussels (front in black), interviewed us and members of the community about the operation of Community Interest Companies such as ASHCEC CIC. We were also pleased to welcome Lauren Colville (second from right) and Tracey Snell (not in photo) who joined us to discuss how we can engage with the primary school children and how we might set up a 'junior board of AHCEC' with them. This would focus on hearing the views of the children regarding sustainability and also help them to understand how our village organisation works and develops ideas. The current board members are Prof. Roy Alexander (chair), Garry Charnock, Kate Harrison, Maria Lindley, Richard Straddling and David Wilson.

Conway Valley Civic Society hear about our project

25th April 2019: Roy Alexander spoke to the Conwy Valley Civic Society about the Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral project at Rowen Memorial Hall. The meeting was well attended and there was a long and lively discussion following the presentation. See poster here.

Our solar panels continue to perform well

Performance of solar photovoltaic panels at Ashton Hayes Sports pavilion

The generation performance of the solar photovoltaic panels at Ashton Hayes sports pavilion has been remarkably consistent since they were installed seven years ago (Figure 1). This has occurred despite fluctuations in sunshine hours over the years (see Figure 2 below). Quarters are seasonal.

Quarterly sunshine hours at Northwich have varied over the period with even this summer having a lower peak than 2013 and 2014 when summarised over a whole quarter (Figure 2).

However, there remains a strong correlation between sunshine hours and panel generation as shown in Figure 3 below. Note the difference between winter/spring figures (lower left points) and those from spring and summer (upper right).