Cairndow’s Our Power, affiliated to the Here We Are Centre (HWA) has already been hitting the headlines for its success with its first renewable energy scheme, a community-owner biomass energy generation scheme.

It has now had more success, winning the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) prize of £5,000 at Social Enterprise Network Scotland’s (Senscot) ceilidh earlier this month. The event had a ‘Dragon’s Den‘ format and the Our Power presentation was agreed to have been so good that it carried the day - or the night - without question.

While £5,000 is little more than a start on the road to the proposal local hydro project, it’s an important start, recognising the worth of the project to the comunity - and it’s great for morale.

HWA is in the midst of a feasibility study for hte project. Around £25,000’s worth of work has already been done o on the feasibility of the chosen site for the hydro-technology proposal. The intention is to set up a partnership with Energy Scotland, the Argyll-based hydro-company, to secure the funding for this stage of development. The project hopes to be operational in 4-5 year’s time.