We are proud to announce that we were awarded the Sector Support Award in recognition of our ‘outstanding contributions to the community energy sector’ at Community Energy England’s Award Ceremony in Manchester.
In CEE’s words, ‘CES has demonstrated exemplary efforts in sharing their skills, knowledge, and expertise with other organisations and individuals in the community energy workforce. Their initiatives not only promote professional development and capacity building but also foster connections and collaborations among various stakeholders in the wider community energy sector’.
Ollie Pendered said, “Sharing learning and expertise is at the heart of our work. Our moto is #strongertogether and our vision is that every District and Borough in England should benefit from a collaborative and sustainable community energy group.”
We developed our Community Energy Pathways programme to mentor and support existing organisations and new groups in the Local Authority areas in which we work. We support over 50 community energy groups and through Pathways we are actively working with 26 community energy groups across Essex, Surrey, Hampshire, Central Bedfordshire and Suffolk.
Through Pathways we work with Councils and organisations on their sustainability policies and climate action plans, and connect them with their local Community Energy Groups.
We have recently launched our new project CommuniPower which aims to tackle the retrofit market and inform local skills. It will open collaborations with local authorities, educational/skills facilities, the retrofit supply chain, finance partnerships with Lendology and Local Authority finance teams.
We have also developed a bespoke accredited Climate Literacy Training Course that provides the knowledge on how to respond to difficult issues surrounding net zero carbon and climate change.
We further support communities through our regular webinars and masterclasses that share best practice, skills and experience across multiple themes, and are well attended. These are available to watch on our YouTube channel.
We are also grateful for being nominated for Community Energy organisation of the year!
We would like to congratulate the other winners and runners up. We were thrilled to see Essex County Council and runners up Hampshire County Council both who we support with our Pathways programme. It’s exciting to see the improvement within this growing sector.
Thank you to the team at Community Energy England for being the voice for this sector and holding these events that enable recognition for the amazing work that community energy brings.