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Why community solar matters

Matilda Lee | 09.06.11

When Howard Johns tried to set up a community energy company fourteen years ago, people thought he was a complete loony.

Today, all that has changed, when Howard was ‘blown away’ by the huge response to a share offer to invest in the first community solar power station in Lewes. Almost all the people who invested were Lewes locals – contributing from as little as £250 to a maximum £20,000 each –and within a few weeks of the launch, the £307,000 target was reached.

Community energy – a thing of the past or the future?

People liked the idea of being part of a local community energy generation project. Countless numbers in the community donated time, effort and resources to make the Ouse Valley Energy Services Company (OVESCo) happen. The first solar panels will be installed on the roof of a much-loved brewery in Lewes and it will generate 92,000 kilowatt hours of green electricity per year.

For Howard, a former environmental campaigner who set up his own solar company to promote solar and contribute a positive impact on the environment, as well as being Chairman of the Solar Trade Association, this should have been an amazing moment.

Yet even as the solar array begins generating electricity at the end of this summer, Howard is troubled by the idea that, instead of becoming a blueprint example of community energy generation, something that could easily be replicated throughout the country, this sort of project will be one-of-a-kind.

The OVESCO project is made possible through a combination of the electricity sold back to the grid and the feed-in tariff (FIT), which helped guarantee a 3-4 per cent investor return per year, over 25 years.

The government’s recent about-face on FIT, reducing funding for projects over 50 kw to deter so-called 'vulture capitalists', has drastically deflated investor confidence and put a dent in countless number of fledgling community solar projects in both rural and urban areas.

Solar Potential for the UK

The solar industry could easily be generating more than a third of UK electricity demand per year. Those involved in solar energy in the UK are reeling at the decision which hit straight at the heart of projects involving schools, churches, retailers, councils and land owners - ironically the very groups at the heart of the government's oft-mentioned big society.

Wherefore ‘big society’?

Mary Walsh, founder of the Capital Community Energy Project (part of the London Sustainable Development Commission's London Leaders programme) has witnessed first-hand the impacts that these types of projects have on communities. ‘In the last year I’ve seen energy project move away from being “boutique” to actually being used as a force for change and mobilising local communities.

‘The difference in the last year has been enormous. I used to have one or two projects approaching me a month, and in the last year it’s been a constant stream. They are now even in urban environments. People are seeing it not just in terms of generating energy, but in terms of improving the local economy, improving the social structure, generating jobs, and generating income that can be reinvested back into the local community.’

'I don’t understand why they have changed it so radically and so quickly because the whole point of FIT was to roll out renewable energy projects and that was exactly what was happening,’ she says.

'In the same way that people like the Transition Town movement and like having their high street full of independent shops and like the local food movement, it’s one of those things that people are beginning to catch on to, going “this is quite a good idea”.'

Power to the People and Energy Democracy

For Howard it is about creating energy democracy. He says, ‘This is about distributing energy and energy security. It’s about going from six big companies who dominate energy policy and dictate terms to the rest of us, to maybe a million little ones. If you’re a generator, you’re a revolutionary.’
 

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