South Cornelly to become Wales’ first low-carbon village

A pioneering council-led new green energy sharing initiative looks set to create Wales’ first low-carbon village in South Cornelly.

The Low Carbon Communities Initiative aims to see how locally generated renewable electricity, produced as a result of solar power can potentially be shared with other homes nearby.

Bridgend County Borough Council, in association with Challoch Energy, NuVision Energy Wales ltd, Passiv UK and the Welsh Government, launched the scheme in order to explore the potential of creating Local Energy Markets where renewable electricity can be traded with participating homes.

A small number of households in the South Cornelly area that volunteered for the scheme saw their properties fitted with innovative solar panels, solar ventilation and energy batteries.

The technology is linked together via home energy management software (HEMS) which will ultimately allow for the sharing of renewable energy with other members of the Low Carbon Community.

South Cornelly was chosen as the site due to its size and location, and because housing is fed from one substation in the middle of the village. Many of the homes are also optimally positioned for benefitting from solar energy.

The scheme is one of many projects that the council is working on as part of the ‘Bridgend 2030’ decarbonisation strategy to make Bridgend a decarbonised, digitally connected, smart county borough.

Bridgend County Borough Council is proud to be a part of this pioneering trial in making South Cornelly Wales’ first low-carbon village.

By creating local energy markets such as this, where renewable electricity can be traded amongst households, we hope to empower communities in Bridgend to decarbonise and help to tackle the climate crisis head on.

If the results of this trial scheme prove to be positive, hopefully we will be able to roll out similar schemes to other areas in the future.

Council Leader Huw David