Community Energy
Coming to Kemble and Ewen
Had an excellent meeting with Julie Hammerton, from Kemble, who is keen to bring community energy to Kemble and Ewen. Julie has joined the “community energy champions” group and is working to create a group of champions in Kemble and Ewen, who can work with the Thames Hend Energy community group.
The goals remain to reduce energy costs and cut the community’s carbon footprint.
We’re calling the initiative Thames Head Energy, in recognition of its location and ambitions. Click the link above to view our website.
We’ve used the Impact tool to check the carbon footprint for Kemble and Ewen, which averages around 28 tones per home per year, with housing at 8.69 tones being the largest part and the area our community energy initiative will directly address, it will also help with travel.
The full report can be viewed here, this is a summary:
Pillars
There are four main pillars to the initiative:
Solar+Batteries+EV Chargers
Over 90 homes have signed up for the scheme in Somerford Keynes, which we plan to replicate for Kemble and Ewen.
We are currently selecting supply(s) to install on homes a combination of solar panels, battery storage, and EV chargers. Individual homes can choose which options they’d like.
The benefits of the group purchase include:
Cost savings
Buy purchasing as a large group we should benefit from cost savings from both bulk purchasing power and cost synergies on things like shipping and installation.
Time savings
Rather than every homeowner having to get quotes and evaluate different products and installers, the energy champions do this on behalf of the whole community
Quality
By combining the expertise of the energy champions we should be able to make a better-informed decision on what are the best technology and installer options.
Solar Farm
We will look for suitable locations to build a solar farm. This will be funded using a proven community share offer approach that has been used by other community energy organisations around the country, that have raised £Millions.
While community members may choose to invest, there is no requirement to invest and we expect most of the money, like with other community energy projects, will come from commercial Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) investors.
Profits generated will go back into the community and we are looking at using the Energy Local model to reduce energy costs for the community.
Energy Efficiency
Looking for ways to help residents reduce their energy costs and CO2 footprint by improving the house’s energy efficiency and looking for financial support for those in need.
Sustainable Heating
Most of the homes in the community are heated by oil, which is both expensive and high CO2.
We are exploring two different ways of replacing this, it may be that both make sense, depending on the specific area. Either would benefit from reduced running costs from the solar rooftop and farm initiatives:
Heat Pumps
This would be similar to our existing solar bulk buy scheme – we’d choose supplier(s) for all homes interested.
This would install air source heat pumps at participating homes. A number of homes in the community have already successfully installed heat pumps.
The benefits of cost, quality, and time would be similar.
Heat Network
We are working with Kensa, who is doing a free feasibility study.
A 5th generation heat network consists of cold water pipes around the area which draw ambient heat from any of
Water – mats at the bottom of lakes or aquifers running below the ground – this approach is already used in some of the lakes in the Water Park
Ground – Boreholes
This has good potential in the Somerford Keynes area as there are multiple lakes and a strong aquifer water flow under the ground.
Individual homes draw energy from the heat network using small “shoebox” water source heat pumps.
The heat network option is interesting as it can be very efficient and may attract innovation grants.
Learn more about heat networks