Agenda item

Overview of community led energy models by Dr Giovanna Speciale, Chief Executive Officer, and South East London Community Energy (SELCE) with input from Afsheen Kabir Rashid, Repowering London

•  Haddonhall TMO with support from SELCE

•  Juniper House, with a deputation including Rob Kenyon, Secretary, Juniper House TRA- a paper is attached

•  Brenchley Gardens TMO

The chair invited Dr Giovanna Speciale; Chief Executive Officer of South East London Community Energy (SELCE) to provide an overview of community led energy models with input from Afsheen Kabir Rashid, Repowering London and SE24.

Dr Giovanna Speciale explained that community energy companies like SELCE, SE24 and Repowering London are social enterprises, usually powered by volunteers, most of whom want a socially just transition to a low carbon economy, powered by renewable energy, where people in fuel poverty are helped to reduce their bills.  SE24 is the most local company and almost solely volunteer run, whereas SELCE and Repowering London have been operating longer, employ workers and operate across South East London and the capital respectively.

SE24 explained that they have primarily worked locally in the charitable sector, with churches and community centres, however new funding means they will also be working with social housing associations.

Community Energy companies use a similar model, which usually use solar in a suitable location, often in partnership with local residents and stakeholders, such as the Haddonhall TMO. Once feasibility has been established the next step is to raise investment funds by a stock offer to buy equity. Local residents are encouraged to invest. The resulting capital enables the purchase of solar panels. Once installed these provide a revenue stream through energy sold to the site at a cheaper rate and electricity sold to the grid, making use of feed in tariffs. This generates enough money to pay both a dividend to stock owners, at a small social rate of return, and a surplus that is reinvested back into the local community.

SELCE have installed 7 solar arrays across seven schools in Greenwich; each school will reduce carbon by 300,000 metric tons over the lifetime plus save the individual schools £300,000 each. In addition create a pool of £100,000 is being raised, which is being used to reduced the energy bills of people in fuel poverty.

The model saves carbon and energy. It is also a ‘win win’ business model: it is self financing, local residents make a small social rate of return, it lowers energy and carbon, and it works to alleviate fuel poverty. Critically it creates community engagement, and creates ‘buy in’ for other social and environmental initiatives. Previous projects have run energy cafes, worked with low income parents to reduce energy consumption and save money, and help gain funds for grants to carry out insulation for individuals – for example loft insulation and new boilers for low income homeowners. 

The surplus generated is now less with lower Feed in Tariffs (FiT); and will decrease further when these end in April 2019. This will mean that the sale of electricity to the site will need go up; although savings will still be significant – for example a £200 per year saving on service charges will make a big difference to people living on the bread line. It is also likely that more attention will need to be given to the technical analysis of the site to maximise the return.

The Community Energy companies said that they are on a race to install and register as it is possible that current sites under deliberation (such as Haddonhall and Juniper House) will be allowed to pre registrar, and make use of the current preferential Feed in Tariffs, if the project is completed by the end of 2019.

Afsheen Kabir Rashid, Repowering London, added that Community Energy usually utilises solar energy as this is a tangible benefit and one of the best forms of green energy in the city, however the environmental and social outcomes go beyond this. Tackling fuel poverty is a key outcome. The other benefit is the inclusivity and community ownership generated via the cooperative model; which allows an equal voice to anybody with a share to decide how the community energy, and associated surplus, is controlled, managed and utilised. The local residents decide how the community benefit will be used. The solar kit is a hook to get people involved in the other issues that are needed to transition and create an energy system that works for people.

Haddonhall TMO explained that the local residents were keen to use solar however they did not have the technical expertise so they asked SELCE to do an initial evaluation. The TMO have recently been awarded a grant from the GLA to do a technical mapping of the site to assess its feasibility. The initiative will be working on both installing solar and also reducing residents energy costs via an energy café providing advice over a tea and cake.

Juniper House Rob Kenyon, Secretary, Juniper House TRA explained that the TRA has the capital available to invest in an array of solar. This is money set aside for this purpose from the former housing cooperative. The challenge is sharing the benefits with residents equitably; this has proved to be a stumbling block over the last two years. Although all residents (both council tenant and leaseholders) receive an itemised bill with communal energy consumption, this is calculated differently: leaseholders are charged for the energy consumed on the particular estate, whereas tenant charges are an aggregate of all estates. This means that while  the council can potentially reduce the leaseholders’ bills to take account of savings provided by use of solar energy generated and used at Juniper House,  its current billing arrangements would not allow the same saving to be passed onto council tenants.

The TRA Secretary said that unless tenants are treated the same as leaseholders it is hard to see how this initiative will move forward as the TRA need an equitable outcome; this is both a stipulation on the capital being a made available for this project and also a  tangible benefit is needed to get buy in from local residents.  He also emphasised the importance of a culture of partnership work across the board with tenants and council to work on initiatives such as this. His primary aim is to get clarity on this so the scheme can go ahead. He said this will be an issue for other initiatives. The other challenge is raising the capital – Juniper House has this, however other schemes will not. Martin Hughes, another representative from Juniper House, explained he has a technical background and he was confident that this is a viable project and advised pre-registration. 

Brenchley Gardens has 95 homes about equally split between leaseholders and tenants. It is financially strong with high levels of tenant participation. The homes are located on large area of communal land. There are challenges; the homes are thin walled brick and hard to heat – there is fuel poverty. The estate has installed communal windows to reduce energy costs. They are looking at a number of different options:

•  Roof Solar Panels;

•  Green Roofs;

•  Solar Powered Lighting

•  Insulation to Blocks of Flats

•  Composting (from flats)

 They are keen to work with the council to reduce carbon consumption and save energy bills and gave assurances that they would a strong and reliable partner.

Cllr Leo Pollack commented that the council plan has a specific commitment and capital plan policy to enable community energy to be realised by residents to reduce energy bills. The wording was chosen to overcome some of the hurdles and technical problems that have hindered projects in the past. He said he was aware of the challenges regarding sharing the benefits equitably at Juniper House. He was encouraged by Brenchley Gardens wider look at energy and the Haddonhall scheme. He encouraged the pre-registration for FiT, and undertook that members would lobby government to allow this to happen.

 He commented that the issues around service charges at Juniper House have wider implications for other estates schemes like this, and the existing protocols and the underlying principles would need to be assessed. This is complicated but not insurmountable; and the council will be looking at policy changes that are needed to deliver the saving to residents’ energy bills that the council plan is committed to delivering.  He suggested that Ian Young, Departmental Finance Manager comment at some stage on the policy and practical issues.

A Commission member on the planning committee commented that it is concerning that new developments coming to planning committee are not meeting carbon standards and having to offset. This includes council buildings.  Getting new buildings right, as well as addressing legacy issues, is important; otherwise the council will not meet the 2025 or 2050 target.  The legacy challenges are already large so the council ought to be getting it right on new developments. The cabinet member agreed this needs addressing and went on to comment that the standards for council buildings are high and there is currently a planned revisit of new build housing standards to raise these even higher and even towards passive house. It was noted that council is setting up our own construction company and this will provide an opportunity to improve our carbon and sustainability performance.

RESOLVED

Write to Cllr Jonson Situ regarding concerns about carbon performance of regeneration schemes generally, and new council buildings, in particular; to understand more about the issues and what is being done to tackle these.