Ripple Energy
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Litany of failures - Very worrying for investors
As a long time advocate for sustainable living I really liked the idea of the energy coop and still believe that this is something we should all explore - but definitely not with Ripple. Overall I have found Ripple to be woefully inadequate on virtually every front - apart from signing up and taking money. They were good at that bit. I began to get a bad feeling quite early on when it seemed communication was slow, poor and little more than self congratulating pats on the back. I understand making people feel good .... but you also have to tell us the truth about what we have invested in - like delays when they happen and the need for additional funding. Then goal posts seemed to always move, before being told that everything would be way more expensive due to mistakes, time slippages etc. and you begin to wonder if the management is competent. Have a look at the Derril Water project that is radically different now to when first presented (and after lots of investors had put money in!) Something else that worried me was pre-selling opportunities to be on the waiting list to interested people for £25 when there was absolutely no information about what the next project was (much to the dismay of lots of people who wanted project 3 to be a windfarm but was instead a solar park). Why ask for this money up front when there is enough time for people sign up to these projects when the details are released .... unless you needed a cash injection? Still I kept quiet and hoped for the best. Then the Kirk Hill coop gets a strike off notice towards the end of 2024 from the Financial Conduct Authority due to not filing accounts for 2 years. Seriously worried at this point but Ripple seem to scrabble around and claim to have sorted it (we still have no independent proof of this). Then we find out in February 2025 that Companies House is going to strike off the holding company (which owns all of the assets of the wind farm) due to not filing accounts. If the company is struck off these assets revert to the crown and it would seem we all lose everything. During this latest fiasco we have not been communicated with properly and we are having to find the facts out for ourselves through other institutions. When we do get emails they are basically holding emails with no useful information (or information we found out ourselves several days earlier). In fact the latest email also appears to misrepresent the situation with with Companies House. As an investor in Kirk Hill, I am dismayed to find out this morning that it looks like the same issues affect their first project but the authorities have potentially not issued strike off notices yet (last accounts for the GF coop is from 2022!) and they also received a strike off notice from companies house in 2023 for the ltd company that holds the GF assets - which they managed to sort out. So it seems that they are endlessly repeating the same errors again and again and causing mayhem for those that invested. Currently Ripple appear to have sacked their chief financial officer (who has also left or is leaving all of the individual projects), have had to get an independent accounting firm in to start sorting out some sort of mess (that may well have been years in the making and they are not telling us what this mess is) and it also looks like one of the large institutional investors understandably has stepped in to take a lot more control of the limited company that owns all the assets. As for their score and feedback on here. I see lots of positive posts from people that have paid but not actually got to a finished project that is paying out. As I say, they are good at taking the money. For the negative posts, I am shocked at the manner in which you choose to speak to some of your customers that are unhappy and raised 100% valid concerns and are factually correct. I will be monitoring any responses to this review - so I hope you take the opportunity to explain why the issues above should be forgiven .... as I really want this project to work for everyone but I cannot see how that is going to be case with Ripple.