Willow Rivers Takes Delivery Of First RHI Biofuel Boiler at the Thornton Manor Care Home Chester

May 3rd, 2013 Posted by Admin in Bio-fuels, RHI, Renewable Energy, SEIS, Uncategorized

On whats turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far, Willow Rivers is very proud to of taken delivery of our first Biofuel Boiler at the Thornton Manor Care Home in Chester.

After visiting the factory earlier this week, we were able to witness first hand the boilers construction, before going on to see the boilers being fitted into their respected Ecolodges.

Each boiler is housed in a large ships container (The Ecolodge) where it is connected to the water tank, flume and pellet feed before being delivered completed and ready for connection to our sites throughout the country .

We plan to take delivery of one a week over the coming months and expect to have them connected and generating heat and Renewable Heat Incentive payments within a month for our investors and large energy savings to our property owners.

We are very proud to be the first company offering this type of asset and expect demand to grow rapidly now we have live case studies investors can visit and experience first hand.

With yields in excess of 17% per annum, inflation linked for 20 years, we see the RHI initiative as a rapidly expanding sector of the Willow Rivers investment portfolio. We are looking to conduct an investors open day over the coming month at one of our multiple sites, as so to demonstrate the asset first hand and answer any questions our clients might have.
To register for further details on the open day please call or email your consultant for further information.

2012 a 3MWp solar success

January 7th, 2013 Posted by Admin in Solar

A happy new year to everyone! We hope you enjoyed a relaxing break and are as excited about 2013 as we are.

We are now installing as many RHI biomass boilers as possible before the window closes in early 2013, but lets not forget what a great year 2012 was. Both agricultural land and forestry continued strong, however our largest success was in solar where all in all we installed nearly 3MWp capacity in 2012.

1.8MWp ground-based solar

50kWp farm rooftop solar

commercial solar rooftop

TV Dragon leads SEIS roadshow

September 25th, 2012 Posted by Admin in SEIS

A group of high profile entrepreneurs is taking to the road to promote a generous new tax relief for early stage business investments, amid fears that the scheme is failing to achieve its goal of converting individuals into investors. The move suggests that take-up of the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), which offers up to 78 per cent tax relief on early stage investments, is not attracting the levels of support its advocates had hoped for. For the full story visit the FT here.

To see Willow Rivers’ SEIS approved, environmentally-friendly scheme that works with renewable heat generation, visit http://www.willowrivers.com/biofuel-RHI-SEIS.shtml

SEIS; the Government’s great new small business growth incentive

August 22nd, 2012 Posted by Admin in SEIS

The government has recently announced the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS); an exciting new initiative designed specifically to incentivize investment in to UK small businesses.

WHY INVEST IN A SEIS APPROVED COMPANY?

Please note, we are not tax advisors; all this information is freely available on HMRC website (link below). An individual can invest up to £100,000 in any tax year in an approved SEIS company. When doing so, HMRC outline that a UK tax paying individual could benefit from;

Income Tax Relief of 50% of the sum invested.
• Capital Gains Relief. Normal CGT of 28% is not payable on an asset sold during the financial year 2012-2013 as long as the gain made on sale of that asset is reinvested into a S.E.I.S approved company in the same year.
Total Potential Combined Relief of 78%.
• Capital Gains Disposal Relief. In addition, after 3 years there will be zero capital gains tax payable upon the sale of the SEIS Company shares.

Only small UK companies can apply for SEIS approval and must meet strict qualification criteria. Once a company is SEIS approved, it immediately becomes more attractive to investors and is allowed to raise up to £150,000 investment per annum. To qualify for SEIS approval a company must;

• Have less than 25 employees
• Have less than £200,000 assets
• Be less than 2 years old
• Be trading for more than 4 months or have spent 70% of SEIS funds raised
• Be in a qualifying industry (as listed on HMRC website)

To qualify the investment has to be held for a minimum of 3 years and the company must continue to trade for a minimum of 3 years.

Full details are given on the HMRC website; http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm

Is RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive) the next smart investment

August 21st, 2012 Posted by Admin in Bio-fuels

The UK Government has once again heavily incentivised the renewables sector as a result of over generous generation tariffs; this time in the renewable heat industry. After the success investors have had with Solar Assets the RHIs potential to achieve 20%pa+ inflation linked yields is even more exciting than the beginning of the UK solar market.

Whats the big idea…?

To incentivise investment into renewable heat production, the UK Government in November 2011 implemented a Feed-in-Tariff style payment scheme for creating sustainable heat from biofuel, called the Renewable Heat Incentive RHI.

However unlike the FIT it is the UK government that will be footing the bill rather than UK energy paying general public. DECC currently predicts total 2012/13 RHI expenditure (including additional within year applications) to be around £41m. As with all new technology and grants there is a time lag involved while people fully understand the initiative and implement their strategies. Uptake is already beginning to form an exponential curve and just like the solar industry we expect this capacity to be reached much before the Governments expectations, making this a time limited opportunity.

RENEWABLE HEAT INCENTIVE (RHI)

Under the RHI, the Government pays a fixed tariff to the owners of these renewable energy systems for every kilowatt-hour of heat produced.

Ofgem administers each eligible renewable energy system, whilst RHI tariff payments are paid directly by the Treasury. As there is no ‘national grid’ for heat all heat generated must be used at the point of generation. Making this an AAA rated income stream.

Under the RHI, different systems will be paid different tariffs depending on the type of technology used and the size of the system

A tariff is paid as “£ per kilowatt-hour” and so the final payment depends on not only the size and type of system, but also the number of “kilowatt-hours” (kWh) generated.

Note that for each given system, there are actually two tariffs; “Tier 1” which is paid for the first 1,314 hours of the year, and “Tier 2” which is paid for the remainder of the year.

For the purpose of this blog we will focus on the returns generated by a 200kw system.

biomass

Tier 1 -¬‐ 7.9p/kWh
Tier 2 -¬‐ 2.0p/kWh

These systems can run 24/7, however for the purpose of allowing downtime we have used 22 hours per day which will generate 8000kWh of heat per annum. As a result the total RHI Revenue forecast is calculated as;

Tier 1; 199kWth * 1,314h * £0.079 = £21,227
Tier 2; 199kWth * 6,686h * £0.020 = £26,610

Giving a total of £47,887 in Year 1 from RHI alone. Note that the tariff is guaranteed for 20 years and linked to RPI. The technology and incentives work best on businesses with very intensive year round heat needs such as drying facilities, chicken farms, and leisure centres.

Willow Rivers will be implementing the first of our projects on a kiln-dried log facility in the South West of England thus maximising the potential returns to investors.

We expect this sector to follow a very similar curve to that of the Solar Feed-in-Tariff, in that the Government has miscalculated the potential uptake of the incentive and as a result the tariffs will be met quicker than anticipated. We hope to be the first to offer a retail level investment in RHI to our clients and investors.

Willow Rivers clients ecstatic with 19% yields per annum

April 30th, 2012 Posted by Admin in Solar

At the end of March the Supreme Court rejected the UK government’s appeal over the feed-in tariff (FIT) ruling, returning originally deemed feed-in-tariffs of 21p/kWh back up to the original higher FIT rate of 43.3p/kWh.

Willow Rivers clients that purchased already-installed Solar Rooftop Assets during January and February 2012 are now ecstatic! With purchase price reduced to provide a 9.5% annual yield at 21p/kWh, these assets will now generate in the region of 19% per annum - inflation linked for 25 years.

To see how happy our clients are we have placed some testimonials online.

“We were always very confident the Government would lose their appeal in the Supreme court for their unlawful cutting of the feed in tariff.” says Willow Rivers Director Ben Jefferis. “We now have a large number of clients some with as many as ten systems that should all produce in the region of 19% per annum - at a time when a double digit inflation linked return is unheard of in the current climate.”

Solar FIT to double for lucky UK PV owners

March 28th, 2012 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Willow Rivers’ clients are ecstatic as, without too much surprise, the UK government’s second (supreme court) appeal was overturned. This deems the government’s October/December FIT reduction as unlawful, and rightfully re-instates all installations between 12th Dec 2011 and 3rd March 2012 to a 43p/kWh tariff. For those that purchased installed solar assets in recent months they will now be expecting to receive annual incomes of 15%+ on their investment, inflation-linked for 25 years. Time to relax in the sunshine? Happy Easter!

For a full article on the appeal overturn, enjoy the Solar Power Portal.

Wrexham County Council hope to get double F.I.T

March 8th, 2012 Posted by Admin in Solar

Wrexham County Council have pulled off an incredible feat; installing over 30,000 solar panels on 3,000 of council owned properties before the 3rd March 2012.

Whilst this is reportedly the single largest social housing solar scheme in Europe, Wrexham will be hoping for much more than prestige. With all systems installed and registered before the 3rd March 2012, these systems will all be applicable for having their feed-in-tariffs increased from 21p/kWh back up to 43p/kWh should the Government’s Supreme Court appeal be overturned. It is widely expected the Government’s 2nd appeal will be overturned, as they offered zero evidence in the first court appeal.

For more information on the Wrexham 5MW installation project, click here.

UK Solar Feed in Tariff Review Likely To Be Brought Forward

October 24th, 2011 Posted by Admin in Solar

Is now the optimum time to invest in UK solar?

The UK solar industry is about to enter its next phase. Since the introduction of the UK feed in tariff back in April 2010 the industry has grown at an exponential rate. The falling price of solar panels coupled with aggressive marketing by solar developers has seen Septembers solar installation exceed all expectation. This curve will only escalate as we get closer to the feed in tariff review in April 2012. However there could be a substantial drop off should the government decide to bring forward its feed in tariff review, as is looking increasingly likely.

The feed in tariff when conceptualized back in 2010 was never meant to be this profitable for developers or rooftop owners alike. A privileged owner of a south facing rooftop in the Devon or Cornwall can expect a return on investment well in excess of 15% pa rising with inflation. This would result in a payback period of some 7 years at very conservative inflation levels.

You will have seen adverts for free solar installations; funds, institutions, pensions and the like are all pouring their money into the sector trying to secure as much double-digit, inflation-linked, government-guaranteed income as possible before the good time ends … and I suspect these contracts will be changing hands for significantly inflated prices in the next 5 years given inflation rates.

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A UK Solar Revolution

June 17th, 2011 Posted by Admin in Solar

The UK Solar Trade Association has recently launched a report claiming that the government has failed to recognize the potential for solar power in the UK. The Alternative Solar Revolution Strategy demands the government to ‘rethink’ solar to deliver a clear strategy and attract more investment to fuel a solar revolution in the UK.

“The Government has got it wrong on solar. We are on the cusp of a global solar revolution, major markets all over the world recognize that solar energy is critical to our future,” says Howard Johns, Chairman of Solar Trade Association. “Germany plans to generate 50% of its day time electricity from solar by 2020 – Germany’s targets are for 52GW of solar energy compared to 2.7GW for the UK by 2020. Community projects have been devastated by government decision making on solar.”

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Rainforest protection drives 34% growth in voluntary carbon market

June 6th, 2011 Posted by Admin in Carbon, Forestry

The world’s leading voluntary carbon market report, produced by Ecosystem Marketplace and Bloomberg Energy Finance, showed a 34% increase in the voluntary carbon market volume in 2010. Despite the closing of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) in 2010, an increase in the voluntary market overall was driven by continued CSR and specifically by projects aimed at saving endangered rainforest and capturing carbon in trees; a mechanism known as “Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation” (REDD).

In 2010, REDD accounted for almost 30% of all emissions reductions documented, thanks in part to new REDD methodologies published by the “Verified Carbon Standard” (VCS) which provided guidance for almost a third of all credits. As a result there was a surge of activity with REDD projects especially in Brazil and Latin America where there was a doubling of credits from the previous year. Read more at Greenbiz.com here.

Solar to reach fossil fuel parity in five years

June 1st, 2011 Posted by Admin in Solar

Breakthroughs in solar technology are likely to drive the cost of solar energy below that produced from fossil fuels and nuclear reactors within five years, according to the global research director at General Electric (GE). Mark M Little, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg, predicted that the cost of solar energy will fall to $0.15 per kilowatt hour or lower. “You’re going to have a lot of people that are going to want to have solar at home,” he told the news agency.

It will be difficult to quantify the exact crossover point when solar becomes cheaper than fossil fuels, in part because of the volatility of fossil fuel pricing. However, the Energy Information Administration predicted in its May Short-Term Energy Outlook that the average cost of electricity will increase slightly this year. In January 2011, the average retail price of electricity to residential customers in the US was just under $0.11 per kilowatt hour. Throughout this year, it is expected to average 11.84 cents per kilowatt hour.

Brazil deforestation increases 473%

May 21st, 2011 Posted by Admin in Forestry

New data from the Brazil government shows that there has been a huge increase in deforestation within the Amazon during the past few months. Brazil’s National Space Research Agency (INPE)’s rapid deforestation detection system (DETER) recorded 593 square kilometers of forest was cleared during March and April 2011, an area of rainforest 10 times the size of Manhattan and a 473% increase over 2010 figures for those two months. Over 80% of this occurred in the southern-most state of Mato Grosso where most of the land ends up as cattle pasture or agricultural land.

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Solar Bond: Power Plant Site Visit amidst the Solar Rush

April 6th, 2011 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy, Solar Investment

At the end of March the Willow Rivers team met with our Solar Bond’s solar power plant development team in Sofia, Bulgaria, to visit the power plant site as well as other plants connected or under development by the developer. With photo-voltaic teams from all over the world trying to secure their share of the ’solar gold rush’ in Bulgaria, the visit was a resounding success and only emphasised the unique opportunity that exists in Bulgaria at the moment.

A unique combination of high irradition levels, comparatively low land and labour costs, a generous feed in tariff now fixed at €0.3579/kwh, a practically new market (with only 25mw connected as of Dec 2010) and a government strategy outlining at least 600mw needed to fulfill EU renewable energy requirements, there was a genuine buzz in the air.

team on site of solar power plant

team on site of solar power plant

Having recently agreed a line of finance form a Norwegian Bank (AAA rated) we were also joined by their representative from Norway who is supported by the Norwegian Government´s export finance division. His industry insight and PV financing experience from Spain to France and Germany re-enforced that this is the only place to be right now for solar PV development.

Our first stop after meeting with AAA co-guarantor banks in Sofia was an existing connected park owned and managed by EVN, a large Austrian/Bulgarian utility provider responsible for off-taking the electricity produced by our plant. The secure park housed a combination of standard fixed PV panels with double tracker systems, where the panel is mounted on a motorised platform, which can swivel to harvest optimal radiation levels throughout the days. Our solar bond power plant will have a combination of the two.

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Timber Investment v Other Assets

April 4th, 2011 Posted by Admin in Forestry

Timberland investment has traditionally been the preserve of the private, non-industrial landowner, accounting for a staggering $150 billion globally. However over the last 20 years, institutional investors have discovered this ‘perfect’ asset and now own around $35 billion worth of timberland globally, in a combination of over 100 private pension, foundation, and endowment funds. Of that around $25 billion is invested in the United States, which represents both the world’s largest producer and user of timber. Pension funds such as Calpers, led the way in the 1980s, however it was the big university endowment funds such as Harvard and Yale that saw the true potential and invested heavily in a move to diversify their portfolios globally. Last year the Harvard Endowment Fund invested $500m in forestry and carbon credits in New Zealand.

So what makes timber such a popular asset with institutions and what are the fundamentals driving this perfect asset?

Timber can be classified as a specialised form of long-term bond. A forest that holds mature timber will generate cash each year through the harvest and sale of timber. These harvests can be modeled and forecasted with a reasonable degree of accuracy over many years. Since timber growth and subsequent harvests are scarcely affected by the movement of financial markets, forest investment can be structured to act and behave in many respects like a long-term bond.

Most view “timberland” as an investment in real estate. While traditional commercial real estate generates income from leasing, timberland derives its primary income from the sale of timber and more recently from carbon credits. However its tax that has been the major driver of forestry investment in the UK; if held for 2 or more years the forestry land can be passed on to family members with no inheritance tax. Timber harvest is also exempt from income tax making this especially popular as a wealth protection asset.

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Spain’s Real Energy Problem

March 1st, 2011 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Recent murmurings about changing Spanish renewable energy policies have caused serious discomfort within the renewable energy development and finance industry recently. An interesting insight into the Spanish energy industry below explains how the combination of a questionable long-standing energy policy, the slow accumulation of annual electricity cost deficit, EU renewable energy policy requirements and finally the credit crisis has left the Spanish government with few options but to get creative.

The Spanish regulation in question has limited how much electricity rates could rise for homeowners and industry each year over the past decade. As energy costs have surged this has left an annual deficit recently reaching €4bn in one year and finally totaling over €20bn by 2009. This debt was packaged in to securitized debt and sold on the capital markets.

In line with EU renewable energy policy goals, Spain was one of the first to make serious attempts to reach their RE goals. However with the very costly exercise of renewable energy funding, the country´s deficit only worsened. Despite their positive attitude, it seems Spain´s efforts were poorly timed. With the immediate onset of the credit crisis the government was no longer able to find buyers for their securitized debt.

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Italy installs 2GW of solar PV in 2010

February 2nd, 2011 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Official reports in last week confirmed that Italy installed nearly 2GW (1,850MW) of photovoltaic power plants during 2010 alone. This continues a rapid growth curve in Italian PV power plants over the past few years from just 60MW in 2007 to 340MW in 2008 and 711MW in 2009. Italy´s 2010 tally more than doubles the figure achieved in the United States who did not quite reach 1GW.

Italian utility provider GSE has outlined that an additional 4GW is already pipelined for installation in the coming years. In accordance with Italy´s 2020 renewable energy targets, the total installed PV target is 8GW in total which will produce almost 3% of the country´s electricity demand itself.

U.S PV to double in 2011

December 14th, 2010 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

According to IDC Energy Insights the U.S total photovoltaic market growth is expected to double in 2011. With roughly 1GW of installations in 2010, as the PV market cost continues to drop this figure is expected to double to around 2GW in 2011. IDC Energy Insights have recently released a study that focuses on the U.S market, including production cost fall-off, government legislation subsidies and incentives, and technological advancements. Whilst the U.S currently lags behind European solar powers Germany and Spain the 2011 growth forecasts indicate that in the near future the global economic powerhouse may well catch up this decade. So much hangs on the legislation, which has ultimately caused the slow-down in Spain´s market.

Americas Largest PV Plant Opens

December 8th, 2010 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Last week the largest PV power plant in the U.S. quietly went online in Boulder City, Nevada, about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Sempra Generation’s 48-MW Copper Mountain Solar Facility began construction in January 2010 and on Dec 1st, the company announced that it had finished the project and the facility was now generating electricity.

At its peak, Sempra said, more than 350 construction workers were installing the 775,000 First Solar panels that power the plant on the 380-acre site.

The power from Copper Mountain Solar and Sempra Generation’s adjacent 10-MW El Dorado Solar plant has been sold to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) under separate 20-year contracts. California utilities are required to procure 20 percent of their energy supply from alternative sources by the end of 2010, increasing to 33 percent by 2020.

The completion of the project eclipsed the 20-MW DeSoto PV plant in Arcadia Florida, which was the previous record holder for the largest U.S. solar power plant.

This moves the U.S. into the “top five” when it comes to large PV power plants; only Canada, Italy, Germany and Spain have bigger plants, according PV Power Plants 2010, which ranks the top 50 facilities.

EUROPES PV MARKET INCREASING

November 30th, 2010 Posted by Admin in Renewable Energy

Global solar inverter shipments soared in the third quarter to a record figure of 7.3 GW, according to IMS Research.

Volume surged nearly 50% from 5 GW in the second quarter, largely due to growing demand in Europe and Asia, said the UK-based PV market intelligence firm. While the rise in German demand has slowed, other new European markets also fared well, expanding by more than 300% year-on-year.

Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) accounted for around 80% of inverter shipments in the third quarter of 2010.

“Again we are referring to a record quarter for inverter suppliers with the previous record of 5 GW of shipments in Q2’10 being beaten by almost 50% in Q3’10,” said Tom Haddon, a PV analyst at IMS Research.