Cyd Ynni: working together across nine communities in Gwynedd
The original Cyd Ynni project, conceived in the early months of 2016, was a collaborative project that successfully linked five community energy groups; Ynni Ogwen, Ynni Anafon Energy, Ynni Padarn Peris, Egni Mynydd and Ymlaen Moelyci – in the post-industrial villages of north Gwynedd.
It’s great to be able to announce that we hope to expand from five members to nine over the coming months!
The founding partners are now very experienced in developing and implementing community-led projects, building on local strengths and shared values to improve our local economies and tackling climate change. All projects are community-led as they are anchored in their community, with individuals from the community at the helm. As a measure of their success, 3 partners have contributed £214,000 in community benefits to the Abergwyngregyn, Bethesda and Llanberis areas to date, with an additional £172,200 being paid to community shareholders. Local energy for the benefit of local people.
The communities working together on this project share similar backgrounds. They are all Welsh speaking communities, who conduct their businesses and lives through the medium of Welsh. They were all central to the industrial revolution, being centres of the slate quarrying industries and of course affected by the Penrhyn Quarry Strike. They now face a combination of contemporary challenges associated with de-industrialisation and the effects of lack of ownership or control over the use of local natural resources. These include depopulation (especially loss of young people), low income, limited job opportunities, high levels of fuel poverty, and old housing stock as well as the effects associated with reductions in public sector services and support. The energy crisis further exacerbates the situation leading people to feel helpless, without the support needed to rectify the situation.
Cyd Ynni believes that these challenges need not be inevitable. We are committed to providing green job opportunities for young people, upskilling and gaining valuable experience in future jobs / renewable projects and sympathetically tackling the energy efficiency of our old housing stock. One of the principles of Cyd Ynni is community ownership – tackling these issues to create more confident and capable communities, willing to take on more projects of their own.
One of the recommendations from the original members of the Cyd Ynni project, highlighted in evaluation of the past 6 six years of collaboration, was to expand the group to include similar groups in north Gwynedd. Cyd Ynni has now invited Antur Llanaelhaearn, Antur Nantlle, Siop Griffith / Yr Orsaf and Ynni Llŷn to join.
Cyd Ynni Development Manager, Phil McGrath, has been developing funding applications over the past few months and the hope is that cooperation between the nine communities will continue for at least the next three years.
Read our next blog to find out more about the details of the Cyd Ynni 2.0 project.