Outdoor activity centre and charity, BF Adventure,  has installed solar panels just four days after being awarded £11,572.

Based in Penryn, Cornwall, BF Adventure won the £11,500 grant at community energy group, Energyshare Cornwall’s Energy Fund Awards, held at the Eden Project on the 10 November. By 14 November BF Adventure had installed its solar panels. BF Adventure is an outdoor activiy centre and charity helping disabled and disadvantaged people to experience the outdoors.

The solar panel installation was for BF Adventure’s ‘Big Kitchen Build’, a new kitchen building built from volunteers and donations. The kitchen is almost complete, still seeking volunteers, but now has a 7kW solar installation on the roof and a 3kW ground mount system.

The panels were installed by South West installer, Natural Generation, which happened to have an installation spot free, straight after the awards.

The award provided full funding for the solar panels which will complement the adventure centre’s 10kW wind turbine. The turbine and panels will generate almost all of BF Adventure’s energy, saving energy bills and generating an extra income to go towards helping young people in Cornwall.

BF Adventure is to hold a grand opening event for the Big Kitchen Build on the 11 December.

BF chief executive, Adrian Richards said the funding for the Solar panels is “a huge boost”, added to the recently installed wind turbine BF “will be virtually energy neutral saving us monies and generating an income which will allow us to further our support for disabled and disadvantaged young people in Cornwall”.

Energyshare’s Mark Holmes said the Big Kitchen Build is an “inspiring project which will deliver sustainability and opportunities for young people around Cornwall for year to come.”

The Energyshare awards saw 23 community renewable energy projects looking to win some of £300,000 in Cornwall community renewable energy funding.