Community Energy? It’s what a community wants it to be.
Community Energy (CE) can include retrofit too. And you can have fun with a thermal imaging camera along the way.
Fine specimens of place-based action for sustainability can be found in some of the Community Energy (CE) schemes springing up around the country. Our guest post this week from Tim Jackson, Parish Councillor and Trustee of Winchester Action on Climate Crisis, describes one such scheme.
Our thanks to Tim, together with Stuart Mills of Alton Energy and WeCAN, who helped Tim in writing the post.
Having read much about Community Energy (CE) from the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) and Community Energy South, and being totally in awe of West Solent Solar with its 2.4MW solar farm in the New Forest National Park, I shrunk at the thought of even dipping a toe in attempting to emulate that in my community. How, I thought, did they mobilise 483 members to become investing shareholders in the project with a company and its own Board of Directors and all the other stuff associated with that?
I quickly reached a conclusion that it’s far too much, will take years to achieve – if ever – whilst shortening my life. So, forget CE!
This was further reinforced when I attended an excellent presentation by CSE to a local parish-based community, which concluded with some fantastic ambitions being expressed for future solar and wind power at considerable scale. The follow-up meeting of a small group of people quickly began to enter the ‘it’s all too difficult and costly’ territory, though they didn’t give up completely.
I then read about John Christophers’ efforts in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, which are very much focused on community whilst being tagged as retrofit. The whole project concerns energy saving for households together with some energy generating on rooftops, all initiated by – and for – the community. I read of its success and rebuked my narrow interpretation of CE as only being small-scale, community-owned renewable energy generation. That is certainly part of it, but more broadly it’s also what John Christophers is achieving through a community-led move to insulate and draught proof large numbers of Balsall Heath homes.
I became a local Parish Councillor in Hampshire in 2020. Impressed that a Climate Change Group had already been established by a few of the councillors, I immediately put my shoulder to the wheel. I assisted the trustees of the local village hall to consider a range of sustainability measures (to be fair, they had already embraced rooftop PV solar panels and those were installed just as I joined). They have subsequently been successful in obtaining significant grant funding for an energy survey of the main parish hall, the retrofitting of LED lighting throughout and the installation of a 13.5 kW battery tied into the solar PV.
I had also been a member of Winchester Action on Climate Crisis for several years, though the emergence of their Winchester Climate Action Network (WeCAN) initiative was new to me. This initiative is financially supported by Winchester City Council, South Downs National Park Authority, and Winchester Rotary. I now recognise it as important in promoting CE through my broader perspective of that term.
Outside the larger towns of Basingstoke, Winchester, Farnborough and Andover, the bulk of Hampshire is countryside and rural villages. Whilst the historic origins of the villages were concerned mostly with people working in farming, horticulture, forestry, and food, the advent of railways in the 19th century and fast road network in the 20th century means that many of the rural villages are now occupied by well-heeled London commuters. Many of these also retire there. The result is that there are some very active Parish Councils in Hampshire – there are 45 parishes just within the Winchester District – comprising people keen to make a difference and with a lot to give to their community. Many Parish Councils now have Climate Change Groups, either directly or indirectly associated with them. Two good examples are Hambledon Greening and Sustainable Overton, but there are many others.
What has emerged over the last three years to turbocharge the pace is WeCAN, which is organised and inspired by Stuart Mills, a director of Energy Alton who also acts as WeCAN’s Climate Officer. WeCAN supports community groups of all shapes and sizes who want to focus on practical measures to reduce the impact of climate change. Whilst many of these groups have a variety of activity strands, Stuart has noticed an ever-stronger focus on household energy efficiency. This is most often in the form of identifying and addressing heat leakage by installing or topping up thermal insulation in rooftops and walls, together with draught proofing. Often, this leads to other forms of retrofit, including heat pumps, rooftop solar PV and batteries.
For many of these groups, my own parish council included, it begins with a Thermal Imaging Camera Loan Scheme. This has become so much easier with a new generation of robust, Bluetooth-ready cameras which retail at around £500. These easily clip to a mobile phone or tablet, without wires or plugs and can be operated with little more than a short pictorial guide, which comes as part of the lending package. People who borrow these are usually fascinated to scan their homes, picking up the cold spots and the heat leakage points. In my own parish, we ask users to complete a post-loan evaluation form, indicating what they intend to do following the survey. We’re now following up on these to see how much of the ambition has been fulfilled. We’ve also received requests for sources of information on what to do; there is much to be had, especially those which Stuart directed us towards in the from the excellent guides from CSE.
The next stage is directing people to reliable professional renewable energy advisers and installers. There’s also the less technical loft clearances and glass fibre toppings-up, which falls more into the remit of the handyperson. Here again, Stuart has shared the spark through Energy Alton’s community energy initiative. This group – run by volunteers with Stuart as a part-time coordinator – has been in existence in one form or other since 2009. Stuart is also sharing his Energy Alton experience with other community groups through WeCAN.
It is early days, but it is also evident that this is beginning to inspire a whole network of parish council-linked groups to take CE in the form of retrofit to the whole of Winchester District, and hopefully out across Hampshire. Hopefully, in time, some of these groups may even develop their own financial investment-based community energy projects like that of West Solent Solar.
My key learning point is my title for this Green Edge post: Community Energy is what a community wants it to be. I would love my community and all communities to have the equivalent of the wonderful core of people who came together to form West Solent Solar. Perhaps, in time, we will. However, one step at a time: for now, my own parish’s Climate Action Group is focusing on getting better and better at rolling out the use of our thermal imaging camera, advising on retrofit options on a peer-to-peer basis, and directing people to expert professional advice and contractors with a track record in quality delivery.
Our journey to this point has been so much easier with the help and support of WinACC and WeCAN. Stuart is working with 15 of the 45 Winchester Parishes and aims to extend this further as time and resources allow. With community-based home insulation and draught proofing, perhaps then rolling into more sophisticated retrofit solutions including PV and other smart energy solutions, this really is CE as each community sees it. I’m sure it will evolve over time as these different groups share ideas and learn from each other.
A couple of points to finish. First, whilst I have tended to dwell largely on the Winchester district and have put West Solent Solar somewhat on a pedestal, in other districts of Hampshire I see groups doing some great work around CE. I include here Dragonfly Power, Loddon Community Energy , Test Source Community Energy and Petersfield’s Home Energy. All credit to them, together with organisations like Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council Green Team and Energise South Downs who are doing excellent work in supporting some of these wonderful initiatives.
And finally, if you are reading this article and are not fortunate to have the equivalents of WeCAN, Alton Energy, Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council Green Team, or Energise South Downs on your doorstep, a great source of ideas and help is provided in CSE’s new community retrofit guide. Many thanks to CSE for that.
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