£150,000 Pledged to New Community Energy Projects - get involved!
Great news - Brighton Energy Coop has now had £150,000 pledged towards forthcoming solar projects, to be announced towards the end of the month.
This is a fantastic response from both our 400-strong membership and the wider community in Brighton, UK. 45 people have said they would like to invest in our latest fund-raising round - as ever we offer our members a 5% interest on their investment and the chance to support new renewable energy in our area.
We built this 120kWp system at Hillbrow Sports Centre in Eastbourne last year - our next projects are 3 similarly-sized buildings
Roughly half of the pledgees are BEC members looking to extend their investments. For the past three years we've paid our membership 5% interest, which is derived from our existing solar projects that we've completed since 2012.
The other half are BEC newbies - many thanks to all of you.
We will let you know details of our new projects by the end of January. These will encompass around 250kWp of new solar capacity on several commercial buildings in the area. Once that's done we have lots more new solar in the pipeline for the rest of 2018 - watch this space.
In the meantime you can get involved by pledging your interest in investing here.
Hope you're well
Will Cottrell
Highly exciting, Will!
Great news. Looking forward to getting involved again :)
I’m looking forward to learning more about this. How long has the coop existed? You started it correct?
Yes, back in 2011 would you believe. Been a ride! £1.5 million raised from 400 people to build 20 or so solar PV systems in our area - map of those systems here - https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1zUfIJ7al8qks0VEag6IM-oH3hag&ll=50.98711869821688%2C-0.03465955000001486&z=9
We need to talk. I would love to get something like that started in my area. I know it’s not something you just dabble in, so I don’t mean I want another hobby — always on the lookout for a new exciting, later in life career.
Ha well yes it does have a tendancy to take over your life. Where are you based? Happy to chat - drop me a line on [email protected] .
Hi Will, totally interested in this.
I'm over in Wales. Planning to install a PV system this summer.
Following to learn more.
Hi @pennsif - great you plan to install solar PV. Don't forget to also claim your #solarcoin when you do! Quite a bit going on in your neck of the woods in terms of community builds - a lot of hydro understandably, but also PV -http://communityenergywales.org.uk/projects-directory/