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A community housing project in East Sussex has been awarded £30,000 from EDF Energy to help people live in a more sustainable way.
The grant comes from the EDF Energy Green Fund and will help pay for a wood chip biomass boiler to be installed at one of the UK's first established co-housing communities at Laughton Lodge near Lewes in East Sussex.
The Community Project was formed by a group who decided to buy an old hospital building in Laughton and turn it into a community settlement, where they live jointly managing the land and communal facilities. The project brings individuals and families together to encourage social contact and a sense of neighbourhood.
The EDF Energy funding will be used to provide all the heating and hot water to a community building and 22 associated homes. The boiler will be run by wood chips which will reduce the energy used and supply hot water more efficiently in warmer months.
Julian Morgan-Jones, a director of The Community Project, said: "We're delighted that the EDF Energy Green Fund is to help make this exciting project a reality. The £30,000 will go a huge way in helping us create this low carbon solution. We want to become more sustainable and this renewable project will help us as a community to do just that."
The Community Project also secured funding from Community Sustainable Energy Programme. The installation of the project is due for completion in October 2012.
EDF Energy has awarded £4.8 million to 270 renewable energy projects since the Green Fund was launched in 2001, including £2 million to 117 projects in schools, nurseries and colleges. The fund supports renewable energy projects which produce power from the sun, wind, water and geothermal sources that reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
In all, ten projects have been awarded £239,868 in the latest EDF Energy Green Fund funding round, including a wind turbine at a primary school in Milton Keynes, solar panels at a Roman villa museum on the Isle of Wight and a sports college installing solar thermal panels in the West Midlands.
(CD/BMcC)
