RESIDENTS from a village at the heart of the battle over fracking are in a race to raise £49,000 for a solar panel project.

The Repower Balcombe renewable energy co-operative is looking to install solar panels on two primary schools in the village but need to raise the money through sales of shares to local people in less than a month – before Government incentives expire.

The government tax break for community energy co-ops is withdrawn on April 6 and so organisers have set themselves the challenge of raising the money by March 28.

The decision to remove the solar support has been slammed by regional Green politicians including Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas and South East MEP Keith Taylor.

They have made a last-minute appeal to energy minister Ed Davey to retain the incentives.

If the co-op is successful, Balcombe Primary School and Turners Hill School stand to save hundreds of pounds each year on their electricity bills with organisers already a fifth of their way towards their target.

Residents are being invited to invest between £250 and £14,700 with a projected rate of return of 5% per annum.

Under the scheme it is estimated that Balcombe Primary School would use around 80% of the power generated, saving £530 on annual bills, while Turners Hill School is expected to use around 50% of the power from their array, saving around £400 each year.

Any surplus power from the arrays would be fed back into the National Grid.

Repower Balcombe previously raised £27,300 for a 69 panel pilot project at Grange Farm which is projected to create 18,514kWh of electricity and save an estimated 9,794 kg of CO2 each year.

Mr Taylor said the tax break withdrawal was “hypocritical” when preferential treatment was being handed to the fossil fuel industry.

He said: “By removing the ability of community energy schemes to run as co-ops and by removing vital tax reliefs, the Government has made it impossible for community energy initiatives to ever mount a serious challenge to the giant utilities.

“The fledgling potential for renewable, local energy co-ops has been cynically nipped in the bud.”

Ms Lucas said: “The Government should be taking action to support the role of community energy co-ops rather than sabotaging it.

“Even if this latest assault on the community energy sector is a cock-up rather than conspiracy, it poses an unacceptable threat to the potential of locally-owned renewables to end the dominance of the Big Six energy giants in Brighton and beyond.”

To get involved in the scheme visit repowerbalcombe.com

Fracking debate

BALCOMBE became the centre of the fracking debate when energy firm Cuadrilla announced its interest in test drilling and possible fracking for petroleum in 2012.

Previous exploration by Conoco in the same area in 1986 was abandoned due to low production of oil.

In July 2013 a license to drill the well was granted by the Environment Agency and met with further protests which continued into August when the firm announced it would suspend drilling.

The protests continued for a few more days in which time Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas was among a number of protesters arrested.

She was later cleared of any wrongdoing.