Update
Thanks to the hard work of the community energy champions we’ve had a lot going on over the summer and made some great progress.
Solar/Battery/EV Charger Community Buy
We now have an incredible 99 homes signed up for our scheme to bulk buy a combination of solar panels, battery storage and EV charging for homes across the community.
We are evaluating three shortlisted suppliers. They are offering discounts of between £1,000 and £2,000 per home based on bulk buying efficiencies and buying power. Tim Hopes is helping put together an evaluation spreadsheet.
We hope to have selected the supplier(s) by later this year for homeowners to place orders with. Installations should start in the spring.
Our goals are to not only provide a cost-effective solution, but also high quality and easy to buy and own. Homeowners should benefit from significant energy cost savings, reduced carbon footprint and increased house value.
Fund Raising
Mark Hastie-Oldland has been taking a lead on fundraising, working with the Cotswold District Council (CDC) on a combination of the grant application and crowdsource funding via CDC’s platform.
This funding will cover the costs to set up Thames Head Energy as a company and pay for the options appraisal and feasibility study for the solar farm.
Ranjit Prasad is setting up the project on the platform, which will launch shortly, we will be seeking funding from individuals in the community as well as CDC, Somerford Keynes Parish Council and the Lower Mill Estate Homeowners Association. As well as the direct money help from wide-scale donations, this will also help us secure CDC funding by demonstrating community engagement.
Once we have a site and need funding for the planning and building we will need to raise financing. This will probably be done via a Community Share Offer, which is the common route for community energy. A lot of this funding comes from organisations who want to invest in safe Environment Social and Governance (ESG) projects. Jon Cantouris has taken a lead on investigating this and talking to potential funders.
Heating
Kensa, a specialist in heat networks, has agreed to do a feasibility study for a heat network. This will initially focus on LME, as it’s the easiest to implement a heat network. If that looks positive we will look at how this could be expanded.
The alternative is a bulk buy of heat pumps. One of the solar/battery/EV charger companies we are talking to also does heat pumps and will provide some advice and options.
We are focussed on the rooftop solar and solar farm projects first but hope to follow with a heating solution next year.
Kemble and Ewen
Julie Hammerton in Kemble is keen to take the Thames Head Energy initiative to Kemble and Ewen. Mike McKeown is working with her on this, the first step is Julie recruiting some local community energy champions, which is well underway.
We envision Kemble and Ewen will run semi-autonomously, they will likely:
1) Run their own solar/battery/EV charger bulk buy. Replicating the existing process and tools and probably supplier(s). The extra scale may also give us all financial benefits. Installations would likely run after Somerford Keynes / LME.
2) Build their own local solar farm (they are actually on a different local grid operator – Western Power Distribution/National Grid). Although we could do something in common if the CDC solar farm co-location looks sensible.
3) Implement their own heating solution. Again this can benefit from what we come up with for SK/LME, whatever combination of heat network and/or heat pumps we settle on.
4) They would like to have a strong focus on helping homes improve insulation/heat use/cost since Kemble and Ewen have a lot of homes where they believe this could make a significant difference. They would also like to find ways of financially supporting lower-income homes
Company formation
Now we are progressing to the point of implementation we have decided to formally create Thames Head Energy as a company. Either directly as a Community Interest Company (CIC) or initially as an Ltd and convert to CIC later, if that is simpler. We expect many (or maybe all?) of the community energy champions will be on the boards.
As a CIC Thames Head Energy will be a form of not-for-profit owned and for the benefit of the community. This is the setup of almost all UK community energy organisations.
Jo Felstead is helping us progress this.
SSEN Workshop
We had a useful planning workshop with SSEN, which owns the electricity grid in this area of the country. Thanks to Julie Arnold for helping with technical assistance that made the meeting all the more valuable.
The good news is the “grid” in the local area has good capacity and should be able to handle our plans. The main consideration is the connection to the National Grid, near Minety, for this area is quite congested until upgrades are complete ~2027. This may have some effects on the scale of our solar farm(s) or how they operate – for example using batteries to take the load at peak solar generation times and sell it as peak demand (evenings).
Solar Farm(s)
Thanks to the work with SSEN (above), investigations by the community energy champions and advice from the CDC we are exploring a number of options including:
1) Locating along the mains line that runs from our primary substation, which is south of LME, to the west of the village and across the north end of the village, near Field Farm. A key consideration will be avoiding visual impacts on homes. Nick Cartwright is working with Ecotricity, who is planning a solar farm near the primary transformer to see if collaboration or co-location would be feasible.
2) Co-locating with a CDC solar farm
Picking a location and doing a professional feasibility study is the next step, subject to the fund raising above.