The Future of Energy is Local – be part of the change!
by Pete Capener, Managing Director of BWCE / Vice Chair of Community Energy England
In the 15 years since we started operating as Bath & West Community Energy, we have seen lots of change within the energy sector and how communities have been mobilising. From the rapid early growth of renewables, powered by the governments Feed in Tariff support scheme, through to our own recent growth as we have started developing new subsidy free renewables projects as capital costs for solar have fallen drastically.
We have moved from a voluntary organisation to one with a staff team of over 30 people and a turnover of around £4 million. As a not-for-profit, democratic and locally accountable community business we offer a practical response to the climate crisis that prioritises collective action, local control and local benefit.
Since 2010 we have raised nearly £25 million and paid our investors a fair return. This capital has been used to build out enough renewable energy to match the equivalent annual demand from around 5,000 homes. The surplus created by these projects has enabled us to donate £430k through our community fund to support community action on carbon reduction and fuel poverty throughout our local area.
We’re also particularly excited to now be testing new approaches to selling local power to local people and launching a new home energy efficiency service that has really taken off over the last 6-9 months.
What next?
There is so much more to do. We have seen the launch of GB Energy, with the recent government spending review allocating significant funding for renewable energy and home energy efficiency. We are also feeding into an ongoing process of regulatory change that if successful, could see our ability to supply energy to local consumers from our own community renewables projects moving into the mainstream within a year or so.
What does this all mean for BWCE and the wider community energy sector? Simply put it could be transformational.
There is still a lot to be resolved with government around the detail for any support mechanism, nothing is guaranteed as yet, but things are looking promising. We could have the very real potential to triple or quadruple our existing renewables capacity with projects that we are already working on. If we could also sell the majority of that electricity to local consumers, more cheaply, we could increase our surplus and so too our community fund and our funding for energy efficiency programmes that could help alleviate fuel poverty.
We could build a model where renewable energy is powering a just transition and creating in the process the community support that we will need to roll out the scale of new renewables required to respond effectively to the climate crisis. Whilst the next £25 million we raise will build out far more renewables, due to falling capital costs, to realise our vision we will need to raise even more capital.
Want to be the first to know when we relaunch the share offer this September, or have ideas how we can promote our ethical investment to new audiences? Email us at [email protected]
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