Afon Cwm Llan - proposed hydro

Spent an afternoon discussing energy plans for Hafod y Llan the Snowdon farm with our neighbours and interested individuals. Arwyn the farm manager arranged an afternoon in Caffi Gwynant which is a community owned and franchised cafe at the foot of the Watkin path. Around 40 people turned up including a good cross-section of the local community and local land owners. Overall there is hunger for high quality detailed information both to highlight what we are doing on the farm but more so that people can apply our lessons to their own projects (and avoid some of our pitfalls) .

I think we hit on three main areas in the meeting

There is obviously an issue with the local grid with two farmers from an adjacent valley having quite big issues with local capacity esp because the capacity for Hafod y Llan does not seem to be a problem. Think we will discuss this further in terms of local capacity

There is a hunger for information on micro turbines but also the information out there from consultants  can also be disproportional expensive ie  engineer on a 5kw turbine will cost the same in terms of advice and time as a 50kw turbine. the advice can make the system un-viable! we need to share more especially on the real world lessons

we also discussed PV and the drop in FIT. esp because personally even with this drop,PV is still viable if you shop around. but will not provide the 12-18% returns and more like 5-7% which is much better than any bank. Again we need to share

Overall we had a really good session and we have agreed to do it again in a few months. I think we will also consider an open workshop based on the practicalities, details and approaches. We all need solutions, worked up examples and options.