Community Energy
Renewable energy projects within the community are of great interest to NailsworthCAN, and particularly in settings such as schools, council properties, churches and other civic centres.
NailsworthCAN actively contributes to an initiative SACEN (Stroud Area Community Energy Network) that is working to identify, promote and support community energy projects in the Stroud District.
As an example of a successful community energy project, NailsworthCAN’s Treasurer, Matt Partridge, introduces this great film celebrating the success of a solar energy project at Minchinhamption Primary school.
You can learn more about this project in this Renewable Energy Installer & Specifier article.
We are keen to see community buildings adopt renewable energy, as we have seen in Nailsworth at the Subscription Rooms and at the Youth Club.
There is scope for many other civic / community buildings in the locality to explore the installation of solar PV (with batteries), heat pumps and EV chargers.
The bigger picture
Renewable energy such as solar, wind and hydropower, can be used to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and while big regional and national projects are needed to displace coal and gas, we can also make a difference with smaller projects at the community or domestic scale.
Electricity use domestically and in industry not new, but as areas such as heating, transport and heavy industry become electrified, the final goal of near full electrification of energy end-use is in sight - see The Future Is Electric.
Greening Our Energy: How Soon?
A talk ‘Greening Our Energy: How Soon?’ by Dr Richard Erskine, Education Lead for Nailsworth Climate Action Network has been presented in both Nailsworth and Dursley. It demonstrated how the UK could achieve 100% of its energy from renewables by 2050 or before without using significant amount of land area. These lessons are as relevant to community energy as to national projects.
What can you do?
When you next change your utility supplier, check out those offering green tarifs, and ideally ones that are clearly helping by investing in additional renewables capacity.
Consider getting solar PV and perhaps participating in a collective endeavour. Learn more on our page /Retrofit-solar-batteries
Remember that the best way to use locally generated renewable electricity - whether community energy or from you domestic solar - is to consume it ourselves, locally, too. This makes the community as a whole more resilient and less dependent on electricity generated elsewhere. The two main ways to do that (above and beyond the relatively small amounts used in lighting and white goods) is in heating our homes with a heat pump (individually or through heat networks), and in transport, when moving to electric vehicles (individually owned cars or community resources like elctric buses).
Make sure that when planning permission is being sought for renewable energy schemes in the Stroud District that you take a look and assuming you approve, write to offer support; the silent majority has been silent for too long (it is only a small but vocal minority opposed to renewables).
