Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The residents of the small town of Wadebridge, Cornwall, are aiming to transform the area into the first solar- and renewable-energy powered town in the UK. Their journey towards this goal is the subject of a YouTube mini-series.
The small town located in Cornwall on the southern tip of the United Kingdom has a population of around 6,000 and, thanks to a campaign by local residents, aims to become the first solar-powered town in the UK.
This campaign to convert to renewable energy is being led by the Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network (WREN), which is aiming to install 1Mega Watts (MW) of solar energy by April 2012 and 7MW of solar energy by 2015, which would account for around a third of the town's electricity supply.
The campaigners have faced a series of difficulties in their pursuit of this renewable energy goal, including winning over local residents and technical difficulties surrounding controversial proposals by the British government to limit the Feed-In-Tariff (payment for generating electricity) to small-scale projects.
However, supported by solar technology companies such as Solarcentury, the town's residents are beginning to install their first solar panels, and their initial inspiration, efforts and journey towards this goal is the subject of a four-part YouTube mini-series. The first episode was uploaded to YouTube on May 20 and outlines the aims of the project and the difficulties involved in winning over some of Wadebridge's residents. The video is available to watch at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA43jMAlE4. The next episode will be made available on Solarcentury's channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/solarcentury within the next two weeks.
The following episodes will be filmed over the coming months and uploaded to the channel roughly every four weeks.
The Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network (WREN) is also available to follow online via Facebook (http://on.fb.me/mt54wZ), Twitter (@WRENuk) or via the official website http://www.wren.uk.com/index.html.
This grassroots project tackles renwable energy on a village-size scale while another plan for a renewable-energy-powered community, the Tianjin eco-city in China, is a massive project - a $607 million, 30km squared city due for completion in 2018.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments