Abundance raises £700,000 in 35 days for solar projects

A renewable energy crowdfunding platform has hit its £700,000 target in order to fund two solar projects after 35 days.

The two solar projects will see arrays installed on schools as part of the Brighter Schools scheme as well as on new-build housing with Oakapple One.

The Brighter School programme will see solar installed on a number of schools across England. The arrays will be installed free-of-charge and the school will benefit from unlimited use of the energy generated while the investors will receive rates of return between 7.2-8.3% thanks to the feed-in tariff (FiT).

Oakapple One is a funding portfolio of roof-mounted solar arrays that will be installed on newly-built residential properties across the UK. Similar to the Brighter School programme, investors will take advantage of the FiT payments generated by the arrays whilst residents will benefit from unlimited use of the electricity generated.

Commenting on the solar projects’ success, Bruce Davis, co-founder and joint managing director of Abundance Generation said: “To break all records in July and August, traditionally slow months for investing, shows the growing potential of democratic finance and crowdfunding to fill the gap left by banks in lending to this important infrastructure investment for the UK’s future energy needs.

“It is also significant that 16% of our members have invested in at least four of the five projects we have offered since we launched last summer and more than half have invested in two or more. This is clear evidence that what we are offering is hitting the spot with our investors, long starved of inflation-beating returns without taking excessive risks and investment assets they can easily understand, believe in and know are contributing to the UK’s real economy.”    

The ventures mark the fourth and fifth renewable projects to be funded by Abundance Generation, which has now raised over £3 million in finance from people investing as little as £5 per project. Abundance hopes that it can fund a further £7 million of projects through the rest of the year.