The pharmaceutical-firm worker who has made a roaring success of getting his local community to go solar

Philip Ditchfield was by day a procurement expert for a pharmaceutical firm and by night harboured green tendencies. After watching The Age of Stupid he tired of hearing excuses such as: "There's no point doing anything because China's emissions are growing." By March 2010 he found himself persuading inhabitants of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, to become part of his 100 Solar Project, a community renewables buying group. To date, 185 households have registered, and 30 Marlow families now generate electricity through photovoltaic and solar thermal cells. "We've had calls from all over the country," he says. "I hope people outside of our seven-mile radius around Marlow will start their own scheme."

To this end he's compiled a best-practice document at transitionmarlow.org. He analysed 10 renewable energy companies using his procurement expertise before settling on freesource.co.uk. "We have enough homes to leverage a 12% discount, so everyone got a rebate after six months. But I'm still aiming for 100 homes, which would mean a rebate of 20%." This could "save 80,000kg of CO2 each year. Imagine if every town across the UK did that!"

But for now he is focused on Marlow becoming a destination where visitors notice a "disproportionate amount of solar". Naturally his house is a shining example. The family is the proud owner of nine Mitsubishi solar PV panels and two solar thermal panels for hot water. "I was offered free installation from installers as a perk of setting this up," he admits, "and as it cost £15,000, I'm sure my wife wishes we'd taken them up on it – but the purpose of a community buying group like this is being on the same terms, so I'm waiting for my rebate cheques, too…"

Email Lucy at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/lucysiegle for all her articles in one place

Our panel of economists share their insights into how Ireland might resurrect its stricken economy

How can the Irish economy re-invent itself? We asked a selection of economists for their thoughts on untapped strengths that Ireland could exploit once the present crisis is over.

Fergal O'Brien
Chief economist, Irish Business and Employers' Confederation

The construction industry has shrunk by two thirds and it's never going back to what it was. But we're seeing real innovation coming out of that ? from architects, engineers and consultants. We've got so many global companies with a base here. Google employs 10% of its global workforce in Dublin. We've got eight of the world's top 10 IT companies, top pharmaceuticals companies and medical devices companies. And they're all in close proximity to each other. There's a real opportunity for convergent technologies between people coming out of those hi-tech companies and those new entrepreneurs from the construction industry in web-based technologies and in innovative design.

Paul Sweeney
Economic adviser, Irish Congress of Trade Unions

Anything to do with cows, sheep, milk and grazing can do well in Ireland. At the moment, the farmers here are all great subsidy junkies. But once the Common Agricultural Policy is reformed, Ireland could have a very considerable advantage in agriculture over its European neighbours. A lot of other countries have to feed their animals with artificial produce in the winter. But we have a very temperate winter and the grass grows very fast. With the rise of organic food, people are really concentrating on what they eat. They're prepared to pay more for good quality food. Ireland can be a leader in food produced by grazing animals.

Sinéad Pentony
Head of policy at Dublin thinktank TASC

Ireland has huge capacity in terms of renewable energy, particularly in wind and wave. Because of our location on the periphery of Europe, we're the first land to be hit by those winds off the Atlantic. We could be a net exporter of energy. But instead, we're one of the countries in the European Union, most reliant on non-renewable energy. There's some investment in sustainable energy. But it's nothing like sufficient. There needs to be multiples of what's happening now for us to be a significant player.

Constantin Gurdgiev
Economist, Trinity College Dublin

We should be aiming for skills-intensive and innovative policies. We should have a flat income tax of about 20% and targeted public expenditure, with public spending similar to Switzerland at about 40% of GDP. There should be dramatic reforms of Ireland's immigration policies to attract high-quality human capital and entrepreneurs.

Ireland should look aggressively at partnerships with rapidly growing economies. The Chinese are engaged in rolling out early stage tests for mass-produced electric vehicles. What Ireland should be doing is going to China and saying 'let us be your partner in Europe'. We can make their electric vehicles here and be their platform for growth into the rest of Europe.

John Fitzgerald
Research professor, Economic and Social Research Institute

Our export model doesn't look as if it's broken. It's the domestic economy, especially construction, where the problem arises. But when this fiscal adjustment is over, the base is still there for the economy to grow. The areas in which Ireland is likely to increase its market share include pharmaceuticals, information technology and healthcare products. And in terms of international financial services, Ireland hasn't really been involved in dealing – we provide back office, IT, legal and administrative functions.

One question I've asked is what role did Irish music have in the Irish success story. Our cultural exports, bands like U2, are probably not trivial. People have heard of Ireland and are more inclined to do business here because they know something about Ireland, or at least they think they do.

The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) has provided $1, 8 million to WebCore Technologies LLC. This fund is going to be used for the development of TYCOR® W core materials, which will be used wind turbine blades.

Under DOE’s small Business Phase III Xlerator program, WebCore Technology positioned at Miamisburg, Ohio. USA was awarded the fund. Xleration awards are offered to help especially small business to increase manufacturing production of technologies that have already been confirmed as effective. Thus the scheme can create new employment and new market opportunities.

WebCore is going to commercialise the development of TYCOR W. It is the core material that used for the production of turbine blades. The funds will be deployed to increase the capacity of Miamisburg manufacturing facility. It will also help to promote further development and improvement of TYCOR technology.

The TYCOR W technology is constituted of fibre reinforcement (E-glass rover or closed-cells having a small amount of foam in the design). The core material has already been patented for above 2 years for utility-scale wind turbine blades. Additional qualifications are provided to approve it for 1.5 to 3 MW wind turbines, which will have blades of the length between 40 and 60 meters.

The TYCOR W is roughly 1-inch thick. It has reported that the technology is 0.5 lb/ft2 lighter than conventional technology. This does also decrease the resin usage by around 0.2 lb/ft2 in comparison to the one using balsa wood as core material.

The company is also trying to maximise the production of TYCOR W sheet sizes, which will improve the kitting capacity by 10 percent.

Source: Renewable Energy Focus

© Jimmy Eriksson for Renewable Power News, 2010. | Permalink | No comment

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