Power to the people. Quite literally after two communities in Snowdonia, Wales clubbed together to fund a hydro-electric energy scheme so that they can generate their own power. The £700,000 needed to fund the scheme, which harnesses the water flow of the River Ogwen, was raised by selling shares to the residents of the communities of Bethesda and Llanberis but, as Keith Jones environmental adviser for National Trust Wales explains, generating a return on their investment was not the main reason why residents stumped up, “The main motivation was that the residents wanted to invest in their own area for future generations to have their own electricity supply…People from one of the poorest areas of western Europe wanted to control their own future and now they can. They have locally-generated electricity from natural water in the mountains that surrounds their homes.” That’s what you call people power.
