Community Energy South
We are a multi-award-winning social enterprise that is enabling communities throughout the UK to play a leading role in the transition to net zero transition.
Starting out in 2013, we have grown from a best practice hub serving the south-east to capacity building at a national level, supporting over 50 community energy groups.
Our ambition for every district, borough or unitary authority to benefit from a community energy group that can provide professional net-zero services including renewable energy, energy efficiency and retrofit project development.
Energising East Durham (East Durham Trust)
East Durham Trust is dedicated to addressing poverty, social isolation, and inequality in one of the UK’s most disadvantaged regions. We deliver impactful change across several areas, including economic, social, and community well-being, through a range of targeted programs and services.
One of our key initiatives is community energy. This is now spearheaded by our community programme, Energising East Durham, which focuses on the “democratisation of energy and climate action in deprived localities.” With significant funding secured from the NLCF Climate Action Fund, this project will run from November 2024 to October 2029, providing a vital specialist community resource. A dedicated programme staff team, including three domestic energy advisors, will focus on climate and energy action at the neighbourhood level, building community capacity to dream and deliver community energy schemes.
Our broader vision includes several projects aimed at energy sovereignty. Horden Heat is working to create a mine water heat scheme in Horden village and has reached the Detailed Project Development Stage 2. This has been supported by the Heat Network Delivery Unit.
The Community Energy Fund has recently awarded resources to conduct feasibility studies into solar, wind and anaerobic digestion renewable energy, aimed at supporting the Horden Heat Network. Power East Durham (PowerED) is a community-owned energy body driving forward net-zero projects in East Durham.
At East Durham Trust, we are building a future focused on sustainability and community well-being, ensuring no one is left behind. Together, we work towards creating a thriving, equitable community where everyone benefits from secure, renewable energy.
“We need support to overcome the inherent and unintended barriers to investment funding for truly community based and led community energy schemes. We are community spirit rich and cash poor. As one of the poorest and most left behind localities in England we struggle to access the capital investment needed.”
Graham Easterlow, CEO of East Durham Trust
Reasons for barriers we find include:
Complex Funding System: Multiple funding streams with bureaucratic processes create challenges for deprived areas. Government Funding Priorities: Competitive funds like Levelling Up and UKSPF have not always prioritised areas like East Durham. LA oversight of this reduces innovation. Economic Focus: Policies often favour areas with high economic growth potential, disadvantaging deprived regions. GVA means East Durham misses out on the investment needed to transform the area through Community Energy schemes. Those in the poorest areas who face the most financial challenges can’t access regenerative schemes that might reduce their liabilities.
Private Investment Barriers: Perceived risks and low returns discourage private capital in economically struggling areas. Centralized Decision-Making: Top-down national policies often overlook local needs and priorities. Planning and Regulatory Hurdles: Complex planning and environmental regulations increase costs and delays for regeneration projects. Skills Gaps: Deprived areas often lack the expertise to develop projects that meet national investment criteria. Uncertain Policy Environment: Changing national policies and funding uncertainties deter long-term investment.
Traditional social investment models are ill suited to our community landscape. While schemes in other areas can raise community share capital and investment locally our communities do not have the same capital or resources to invest. We have inovat8uve ideas about how we address this, including acquiring external investment that residents get the opportunity to ‘spend’ by allocating household a figure and asking them to ‘spend’ this on a choice of local schemes. The profits would then be reinvested back into the community directly.
North East Combined Authority and Social Investment:
– The new North East Combined Authority policy is not well equipped to facilitate social investment opportunities for community energy schemes. There is a significant funding disparity between the non-social business investment of £17 million and the authority’s social investment pot of £1 million for community-led regeneration. This is over seven local authorities
– The social investment fund is capped at £400,000 over five years, which is insufficient to address the needs of vulnerable communities. – The funding structure supports either very small organizations with limited impact or larger entities using the fund for short-term cash flow.
– Larger, long-term funding schemes (£1 million to £500,000 over 10-20 years) are lacking, creating a major obstacle for meaningful regeneration efforts. – Opportunities for social investment exist outside the North East Combined Authority, but there is no forum to promote investment-ready projects. – A lack of risk appetite and inadequate responses from the North East Combined Authority hinder innovation in financing strategies.
– While grants have a role in the third sector, there is a crucial need for proper financing of socially transformative businesses.
– An intersectional approach to funding is needed to address the diverse needs of communities across the North East.
South East London Community Energy – (SELCE)
South East London Community Energy (Selce) was born in 2014 by a group of local volunteers.
Over our first ten-years, we have set up projects that support a just and fair energy transition through distributed and renewable energy, reducing local energy demand, and ensuring no one gets left behind. To date, we have built 11 solar arrays on community buildings in SE London and upgraded 7 buildings’ lighting systems to be more energy efficient.
We’ve also helped well over 4,000 households with their energy bills and this year we launched Future Fit Homes, an advice service to help homeowners retrofit for health, wealth and planet
We are a cooperative of over 270 members that are committed to community energy and a just energy transition.
Giovanna Speciale, Director Founder
Rossendale Valley Energy – (Lancashire)
Rossendale Valley Energy is pioneering The Net Zero Terrace solution that will unlock over 6 million 2/3 bed terrace homes that do not have space for Air Source Heat pumps and therefore will be stranded in the transition to decarbonisation. This will also provide an additional 20GWh of energy storage capability to exploit cheaper generation prices and tariffs, at zero cost. It will drive efficiency into the networks and reduce people’s bills by making their heating systems 4 times more efficient and helping eradicated fuel poverty.
This whole-systems solution combines shared ground loop clusters, retrofit, a Smart Local Energy System, and community engagement methodologies with the ambition to provide affordable, low-carbon energy and healthy warm homes at no upfront cost to residents, addressing fuel poverty and accelerating decarbonisation of heat and deployment of demand side flexibility.
The project focuses on hard-to-treat terrace homes in areas with high levels of deprivation and private rented accommodation, at risk of being left behind in the energy transition due to affordability issues and viable routes to decarbonise.
The project aims to develop an investable business model for community-scale energy solutions that can be replicated across the UK, creating local green jobs, empowering communities and improving resilience.
It will test the integration of physical and digital infrastructure, test the ability of the SLES to provide demand side flexibility to lower costs for householders, validate the scalability of the SLES, and gather real-world data to demonstrate how community-led, affordable energy solutions can scale decarbonisation of heat while benefiting the most vulnerable households.
We are currently delivering 2 grant funded programmes:
- Energy Advice LEAD – ends march 2025
- Net Zero Living Pathfinder places – ends Nov 2025 – DESNZ run by IUK
- About to start a Network Innovation Alliance project with ENWL
- Will look to apply with SIF beta – May 2025
- We are supported by Community Energy Pathways and their Community Energy People Lottery programme
We need continuity:
- we need pathway funding that will enable project continuity and development that can enable replication and scale.
- We need Pilot funding for 150 – 500 homes (like Whitby or Redcar – but done, community up, not top down)
- We need to keep the team and knowledge together, we can’t do that with disparate funding pots#
- We need DESNZ to have a place based, wholes systems community decarbonisation team that works with groups like us!
‘We’re working to do the ‘hard yards’ of decarbonisation: hard to treat homes and hard to reach people who need affordable energy first and fastest. We have to address the Chronic issues (poor quality housing and high-cost energy) rather than just attempt to treat the acute problems of fuel poverty with energy efficiency advice. Net Zero Terrace street is a replicable, scalable solution that needs DESNZ strategic support”. Kate Gilmartin Volunteer Director
Zero Carbon Guildford (Surrey)
Zero Carbon Guildford is a community-led organisation which tackles local issues through pragmatic solutions which can also help to tackle global scale problems including climate change and nature loss. We focus on creating solutions which bring together the objectives of improving resident health and reducing health inequality, boosting the local sustainable economy and reducing emissions.
One example of this is our Home Energy Advice Team (HEAT), which is a project designed by ZCG and run in partnership with Surrey County Council and other community groups, delivering free thermal imaging surveys, energy saving advice and support with energy efficiency grants to residents in ‘hard to treat’ homes and ‘hard to reach’ communities. In 2024 HEAT has supported over 600 households, with a resident feedback rating of 4.9 / 5, and 75% of respondents saying they’d be ‘more likely to install significant retrofit measures as a result of the survey’. The service means we can reduce bills, whilst lowering the risk of damp and mould, in turn reducing pressure eon local health services, upskill residents and create jobs in the blossoming retrofit sector, and decrease residential emissions.
We run ZERO, a community-led town centre premises focused on energy, climate and environment, at the top of Guildford High Street. ZERO won Innovative UK Community Project award in 2023, and provides a trusted place for residents to drop into for independent energy advice.
We are also heavily involved with the Community Energy Pathways team in the new Surrey Community Energy CBS, newly registered with 4 of 9 directors being ZCG volunteers. Surrey lags behind many parts of the UK in terms of community-led generation, and we are helping to turn this around by bringing community energy projects to the county.
Ouse Valley Energy Services Cooperative (OVESCo, East Sussex)
The Ouse Valley Energy Services Company (OVESCO) is a not-for-profit community energy company based in Lewes, East Sussex. OVESCO’s vision is to empower communities to take control of their energy future by generating clean, renewable energy locally and sharing knowledge about energy efficiency. The organization focuses on community benefit, offering energy advice to residents and training Energy Champions who assist the public with reducing energy bills and improving energy efficiency.
OVESCO has successfully installed 15 community rooftop solar projects, providing renewable energy for schools, community centers, and businesses. It also helped develop a 5MW solar farm for Meadow Blue Community Energy, significantly contributing to local clean energy production. We currently have a 17MW solar farm in development stage.
Every year the team of trained and locally trusted energy champion give one to one advice to over 2000 homes across the District, supporting vulnerable households is a key part of our work. OVESCO runs the Eco Open Homes initiative, where residents open their energy-efficient homes to the public, showcasing practical ways to save energy. Eco Open Homes provides home visits and an annual Eco Extravaganza backed by local installers, offering expert advice on the latest energy-saving technologies. This initiative has boosted the community’s uptake of energy efficiency measures and micro-generation technologies, such as air source heat pumps. OVESCO has also mentored other community energy groups across the UK, building a network of community-led energy initiatives.
OVESCO are partners with South Downs National Park and Lewes District Council on the Climate Lottery funded Ouse Valley Climate Action project and have been involved with Community Energy South in setting up the Lewes Energy and Climate Hub, a high street facility.
“To scale up, we need funding to continue our trusted energy advice service and support the growth of local energy generation to meet net zero targets for 2030.”
Chris Rowland – Founder Director.
Energise Sussex Coast (Hastings, East Sussex)
Energise Sussex Coast (ESC) has been giving energy advice to vulnerable residents since its inception in 2012. In the last year our advisors took over 7000 calls to our energy advice helpline and approx 1000 households living in fuel poverty received in depth energy advice by phone or in person and were supported by energy efficiency measures or referred for further energy efficiency improvements and retrofits, creating financial benefits for the households of approximately £ 360,000. When energy saving benefits are added to the benefits support provided by our partner charity HARC, the total financial benefit is over £ 2 million.
We work with Community Energy South on the UKPN funded Leaving No One Behind project which enables us to be present in the spaces and places that the public use every week to run pop up energy advice desks. We connect with local groups to give talks and we organise community information evenings so residents can access impartial advice on everything from heat pumps, energy efficiency and off grid solar systems.
ESC’s latest and most innovative project is called “Energising Communities” and aims to create and implement a multi-site microgrid system that supports the transition to net-zero carbon emissions in three specific locations: Bexhill, Battle, and Crowhurst in East Sussex, UK. The project will explore different types of microgrids—one for blocks of flats owned by a social housing provider, one for a neighbourhood, and one for a whole town—using innovative technologies to overcome energy grid constraints and share solar power locally.
Key goals include:
- Installing solar panels and battery storage systems to power local communities and reduce energy bills.
- Developing a scalable model for solar retrofits and community-owned renewable energy systems.
- Reducing carbon emissions and energy costs for vulnerable residents while creating local benefits through community funds.
The project hopes to demonstrate how small towns and communities can achieve net-zero energy status through sustainable and replicable models, benefiting both residents and the environment.
Image courtesy of Energise Sussex Coast