Interested In A Community Solar Energy System?
Simply click the button and complete the form. We will then be in touch to understand your needs, and provide more information on how a community solar energy system can benefit your community.
Community solar is simply a larger scale solar energy system that is owned by the community or community organisation being designed for the benefit of the community rather than investors, companies or others that can build larger solar energy systems.
How Solar Energy Helps My Community?
Reducing Energy Costs
By generating solar power locally the community can save money on electricity bills, the lower costs paying towards the local community instead of energy companies.
Local Income Spent In The Community
The income earnt from the solar energy can then be spent on local projects that benefit the community where the power is generated. This means money for what is important for the community handing back control to local people.
Any Community Can Take Part
Solar energy is every versatile and any type of community that wants to work together to install a solar system can be involved from official groups to residents associations, all of whom would like to benefit their members.
Earning Income
It may not be possible to distribute the solar power effectively to the local community so the electricity can be exported to the grid or other uses e.g. EV chargers, to earn income to pay for the system and profit.
Protecting The Environment
Generating local zero emission solar energy provides a great environmental impact as the electricity is used locally while keeping the air clean and reducing pollutants. Great for everyone young and old in the local area.
Securing Our Energy Future
Solar energy systems are designed to have lifespans over 20 years which means any solar community will have an regular income for many years enabling it plan ahead something that hand to mouth grants don't allow.
Who Can Have Community Solar Energy?
Community solar owners are wide and varied from residents associations to churches, community centres, schools and local people who want to invest smaller amounts in a local solar energy scheme. There are hundreds of communities already engaged in community energy projects across the UK.
For community solar the main requirement is somewhere to place solar panels – roofs, community owned land, and for more space working with local businesses and organisations who have large roof spaces but don’t have the time or money to develop a solar energy system. They benefit from having cheap electricity and the community solar group earns income from a definite customer for local investment.
In 2021 community energy saved £3.35m on energy bills (Community Energy England annual survey)
Environmental Benefits
We are all aware of the human effects on the climate, none more so than in local communities where the realities of excess pollution and other effects are felt directly by the people living there.
Zero emission solar generated energy helps reduce this, and when coupled with other energy beneficial measures – energy efficiency, ZEVs (Zero Emission Vehicles) etc., greatly improves air, water and general environmental qualities and the reason many community solar groups start – to improve their local environment with the added bonus of earning money for the local area at the same time. To use a well worn cliché – win win, but is certainly true in this case.
How Does Community Solar Work?
Community solar is very versatile and every agreement is unique but here are the main ways it works.
The simplest is the community owns a roof(s), land or just open space – car parks are ideal, that the solar panels are mounted on. The generated electricity is sold directly to the grid. Very straightforward but not necessarily the best return for the community.
Alternatively as mentioned above, the community raises the money to purchase the equipment to place solar panels on a host site e.g. school, business, and the host site buys reduced rate energy using a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) from the community group which either pays off the system, gives a return on the investment with the profits spent in the local community.
Some groups, usually residential associations, use the electricity directly, only selling the excess to the grid.
This along with the PPA gives the best return on investment for community groups as the electricity companies can pay a lot less than the purchase price. See How Does Solar Energy Save Me Money for a comparison between just selling to the grid and benefits of using the power yourself.
Members of the community solar group can help in many ways from finding sites, developing projects to creative ways to spend the surplus money.
Getting Started
Unsurprisingly most people involved are not energy professionals so that is where Solus Energy come in, helping from initial setup, viability surveys and planning through to the more technical when it comes to installation, commissioning and system monitoring.
Community solar can be financed through individual contributions especially for smaller schemes, and/or financing, usually a combination of the two. Every community scheme is individual, so the exact composition of the finance will be too.
If you would like to know more then please get in touch and we will be happy to help.