Community Energy
Update
I’ve set up a community energy initiative with a group of “community energy champions“. Our goal is to reduce our energy costs and cut our carbon footprint. We are expanding on forms of community energy that were already underway, for example, solar panels had previously been installed on the village hall, generating over £2,000 a year for the community and Muriel Watkins runs an oil bulk buying scheme to reduce costs.
We’ve started where I live, in Somerford Keynes, but once we are fully up and running and ready to replicate we plan to expand the initiative surrounding communities.
We’re calling the initiative Thames Head Energy, in recognition of its location and ambitions to expand beyond Somerford Keynes. Click the link above to view our website.
We’ve used the Impact tool to check the carbon footprint for the parish and found we average around 28 tones per home per year, with housing at 9.27 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:
Interestingly the Kemble ward as a whole is almost identical:
Pillars
There are three main pillars to the initiative:
Solar panels of the village hall generate over £2,000 a year for the community
Solar+Batteries+EV Chargers
Over 80 homes have signed up for the scheme.
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 are looking 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.
We have started capacity planning with SSEN, who owns the local grid network, and are exploring locations that will be away from homes and views.
We are also working on raising funding, via grants, for the initial feasibility planning.
Sustainable Heating
Most of the homes in the community are heated by either oil or Calor gas, which are 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 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
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.