Ripple energy "strike off"

[John_S]

1stenergy.co.uk and 1st Energy UK Limited are one and the same. The privacy policy on the website confirms the name.

Interesting that the privacy policy has a Liverpool address and the website a Livingston address and that the phone number is an 0203 area code (London) but can be used a 'virtual' area code from anywhere. The Liverpool address appears to be a Regus serviced office. Similar for Livingston.

Also interesting that the About/Our Team page of the website is entirely written in the third person with no names.

All the makings of a small outfit trying to look big.

[Tinbum]

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... 4/officers

[Kommando]

You can have a different registered address from a trading address, they have used their accountants address for their registered address. Livingston is a trading address. In 2024, which is their first full trading year, they lost £1.6K on a turnover of £682K with net assets of -£30K at the end of the year. What one of my old MD's called Busy Bee syndrome but it is only their first trading year and new companies do not achieve profits immediately. The issue is how with such a thin balance sheet and only breakeven they can afford to buy another company out of administration unless they paid next to nothing.

Click on the pdf link next to amended accounts.

They made a mistake when posting the amended accounts and adding in a lot of detail that a micro entity does not need to make public. They did not make the same mistake on their first submission.

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

[chromium]

It strikes me that 1st Energy think they've bought a going concern or one that going to be easy to turn into one.

I'm sure in the KH meeting the board said they had served notice.

It's a complete dogs breakfast and handily the Administrator's website hasn't been updated. My credit card company won't start a section 75 unless ripple are in liquidation.

It's not bad enough losing a big chunk of money in Ripple Energy Ltd shares but now going to lose some more on top it seems.

Little wonder Sarah Merrick & Simon Peltenburg are invisible.

[NoraBatty]

To be fair to Sarah it is no longer her company. As soon as they instructed administrators they handed over the company to Begbies. It may still technically be her company but she is gagged, neutered and powerless.
Any ripple related communication to people has to go through the administrators. Her/their singular responsibility is now to help the administrator carry out their duties, nothing else.

Im not sure of the ins and outs of ripples management process, but it will be a case of 1st having bought the management contracts ripple had with all of the energy suppliers for each specific project.
KH, GF and DW may want to sever ties, and may well do so, but the specific arrangement for renumeration via energy bills is made via ripples management contracts.
So they would either have to find someone to negotiate a similar deal, with each provider, or decide to go with 1st which offer a seamless transition with minimal disruption.

[Tinbum]

but the specific arrangement for renumeration via energy bills is made via ripples management contracts.
So they would either have to find someone to negotiate a similar deal, with each provider, or decide to go with 1st which offer a seamless transition with minimal disruption.

Would the contract not be with the coop and it would be ripple that just did the admin?

[NoraBatty]

but the specific arrangement for renumeration via energy bills is made via ripples management contracts.
So they would either have to find someone to negotiate a similar deal, with each provider, or decide to go with 1st which offer a seamless transition with minimal disruption.

Would the contract not be with the coop and it would be ripple that just did the admin?

I dont know.
I would imagine, given that the management of such things and the sharing out of payments was fundamental to Ripples basic business strategy, that it was kept in house.
But its complete speculation based on my thinking that anyone can throw some investors together and purchase a windfarm if they get enough money together.
Not everyone can negotiate contracts with energy suppliers to create such a unique payment scheme. Given the model of payment is the same for each project ripple has done, it seems more a ripple thing than an individual co op thing.

Other than that contract i cant actually see what ripple bring to the table in terms of management at all.
The co op boards could easily employ an accountant to take care of the books, paid directly from the proceeds before dished out.
Once the sites are made, yes its maintenance that is needed, but ripple werent doing that themselves either were they. Just picking up the phone to someone who can and taking a cut for it.
Im sure there is much more too it than that, but i think managing their own sites would be well within the realm of individual co op boards if organised properly.
Graig Fatha especially given it is much simpler and smaller.

[cojmh]

I dont know.
I would imagine, given that the management of such things and the sharing out of payments was fundamental to Ripples basic business strategy, that it was kept in house.
But its complete speculation based on my thinking that anyone can throw some investors together and purchase a windfarm if they get enough money together.
Not everyone can negotiate contracts with energy suppliers to create such a unique payment scheme. Given the model of payment is the same for each project ripple has done, it seems more a ripple thing than an individual co op thing.

Other than that contract i cant actually see what ripple bring to the table in terms of management at all.
The co op boards could easily employ an accountant to take care of the books, paid directly from the proceeds before dished out.
Once the sites are made, yes its maintenance that is needed, but ripple werent doing that themselves either were they. Just picking up the phone to someone who can and taking a cut for it.
Im sure there is much more too it than that, but i think managing their own sites would be well within the realm of individual co op boards if organised properly.
Graig Fatha especially given it is much simpler and smaller.

I think the biggest thing would actually be dealing with the members - unless they don't want to expand (i.e. they want to use the members to invest in other projects)

Like you say, it seems like the nuts and bolts of running an existing farm by using individual subcontractors is within the realms of the co-op board.

However any company that takes this on is likely to want to expand in some way and that will involve having a more day to day dealing with us the members.

From what I saw - it seemed like Ripple was more interested in being a publicity machine (perhaps taking a longer term view) and lost sight of the day to day management which was their bread and butter income (but probably boring!) So we need to make sure the new company does not fall into this trap.

With respect to the new company - another concern I have is what they have listed as their business activities (SIC)

"82911 - Activities of collection agencies"

From looking this up on google - it seems like this is to do with debt collection (I would imagine 3rd party debt collection for it to be listed like this). A totally legitimate business activity but it is definitely something that would concern me.

[NoraBatty]

Well its all speculation, but from what i see of the messages Ripple made to investors (see page 10) it seems the publicity was needed, as was lobbying the government.
Its clear they took on more than they could chew with WB.
If they'd have kept ticking along with smaller sites like GF, then this most likely would not have happened.

The business model was flawed for such a large scale. Putting 120% limits on people who at this early stage of the companies are more likely to have a reduced electricity consumption due to being greener thinking, and therefore more likely to invest in such a scheme, did not help.
Lack of tax/govt incentive for businesses to coinvest was also hurting the sign up for this project in particular.

They also had p3 and p4 investment windows open in very short succession with only 1 operational site to prove their model was successful.
KH went live after WB share offer opened, and just as it was supposed to close.

We were moving at the period when DW was announced as open to buy. It was a terrible time to sit down and go through a share offer, and i was less interested as it was solar not wind, but they had project 4 in the wings and were stating that would also soon be launched. By the time we sat down and had a chance to think about it, DW was closed for applications.
I wish i would have found time there and then, but, hindsight.

I think they just moved far too fast for their own good.
Get KH operational and dive in to DW share offer. That then gets 2 functioning sites under your belt. Get DW done then expand to WB .
Of course p4 wouodnt have been WB in that case, but projects are everywhere.
A few smaller projects constructed and running would have a proven track record, and made it considerably easier for people to invest in.

Illusions of grandeur, if you like.

[cojmh]

Weekly email from Kirkhill Coop Board:

Dear ,

Firstly, 1stEnergy. A representative from 1stEnergy contacted the chairs of the coops on the evening before their public announcement about 'taking over' from Ripple. We are going to meet them tomorrow evening to see what their pitch is and whether we feel they should be considered in the mix to provide services to Kirk Hill in the future.

As far as we know, they have bought the platform on which the dashboard runs, but what else remains to be seen. As you know, we terminated our Management Services Agreement (MSA) with Ripple Energy Ltd on 17th March, with immediate effect, so they do not currently have a contract to provide services to members.
We also requested that the administrator hand over all information and data belonging to the coop that was being held by Ripple to our representative. We were already in possession of what we think is the majority of our data so can compare what does eventually come back from the administrators. To clarify, they have no legal right to 'sell' any data belonging to the coop (including your contact details) to any 3rd party.

With regard to the MSA, we told you that our SPV partner Bruntwood is providing the accounting and administrative functions we need to get the coop accounts in order. This is currently an informal agreement between the SPV and Bruntwood. However, Virgin Bank, with whom the SPV has a loan facility requires a formal agreement of services to be in place to ensure that the loan does not trip into default status, and we have until the end of this month to effect that.

While we know it will take longer to assess and decide upon a partner to provide longer-term services (both regulatory and member services where we are not in a position to do it ourselves) we agree it is essential that we enter into a short-term agreement with Bruntwood to continue to provide those functions essential to complete the accounting audit as well as plan for the future management services required. This agreement will provide those services at-cost to the coop and will be for a maximum period of 6 months. It does not cover such things as communication with members (we will endeavour to keep this up and improve it ourselves with new volunteer input) but it will cover essential items such as documentation required for self-assessment purposes as well as the all-important audited accounts.

Thank you to everyone who responded to our request for volunteer expertise. We were delighted by the number of members offering their support in all sorts of ways. To begin with we will be focussing on IT and risk and will be reaching out to some of the volunteers soon to progress these topics.

If you haven't had a chance to look at the responses to our questions about the various options that may be available to us as a coop, which we asked for to get a sense of your future priorities and preferences, you can still access the summary slidepack here.

And finally for this week, thank you for your feedback on the monthly performance report. The Survey remains open and closes at midnight tonight.


Best wishes
The Kirk Hill Wind Farm Coop Board