Thanks to the Lottery Community Fund, volunteers already working with community energy groups in Surrey are now trained, ready and waiting to help households in their areas save energy and save money. These skills are fundamental to reinforcing the much needed retrofit sector to help us all reduce our carbon footprint.
The one-off Lottery funded Project Energise upskilled volunteers from community energy groups to Level 3 City & Guilds to become Energy Champions. Thanks goes to the Energy Training Network for providing the venue for free, and the National Energy Action charity for offering their much needed skills.
Community energy groups are trusted voluntary organisations which run projects to benefit local people. These can include visiting homes to detect draughts and advise where energy savings can be made. They will know what grants there are, understand what financial assistance is there for those who qualify for it, and spot vulnerabilities in households that local community groups can act on. They often work closely with support from local councils.
Funded by the Lottery, Project Energise was delivered by Community Energy South (CES) and commissioned by Surrey County Council to support the growth of community energy groups, skills and projects across the county, and work collaboratively with the Council to help meet its net zero targets.
Melania Tarquino from Surrey County Council said
”We thank all the volunteers who took part in this training to become trusted Energy Champions. There are many people who will benefit from this newfound knowledge on ways to save energy and money. And through our Pathways programme with Community Energy South, we are delighted to be able to support the delivery of Project Energise. To reach our net zero targets we must work together and this is a great example of what can be achieved when we do.”
Nicola Davidson, Project Manager at CES commented,
“Our ambition is to help grow Energy Champions so we can all try to save energy and cut costs. Long term we hope to see more community energy groups develop skills and paid roles to deliver energy saving and even energy generating projects. We hope to see more groups attract people who start off volunteering, see their value and career potential, then be trained to become professionals.
Thank you to Surrey County Council, Energy Action Redhill & Reigate, Zero Carbon Guildford and MaidEnergy Co-operative for sending your volunteer learners. To all householders across Surrey, please use these wonderful community energy groups to help you save energy at home.”
To those in the trade, please consider how you could lend your assets, skills and time to support projects like this as the Energy Training Network have done. Please email Community Energy South at contact@communityenergysouth.org to make your offer.
