A huge thank you to everyone who came along to our screening of Power Station at the Odyssey Cinema! We had an amazing turnout from the local community, with over 100 people coming to watch the inspiring film and hear from our panel.
Power Station tells the story of two activists’ campaign to get solar panels installed on every home in their London street. It’s a heartwarming story of community spirit and sheer determination, that set the tone beautifully for a panel conversation exploring what a people-powered energy transition might look like in St Albans District.
Tony Elkington introduced Alban Community Energy’s plans to install rooftop solar on large buildings across St Albans District. Local investors will provide the capital, local trades will do the installations, local organisations will benefit from the cheap and clean electricity being generated on their roof, and our profits will be reinvested for the benefit of the local community.
Tony was joined by Sarah Burgess from Grand Union Community Energy and Howard Johns from POP Energy to share some insights into how other organisations are approaching community energy. Sarah talked about some of the projects they’ve been working on, including rooftop solar on schools and energy advice services. Howard explained their Street Power Champions model, where they work with groups of neighbours who want to install home energy upgrades together for bulk savings.
We had some great conversations from the audience, and it was a wonderful opportunity to meet and speak with some of our early supporters.
Our next steps
We are actively looking for sites for our first community-owned rooftop solar project. An ideal site would be a building with a large roof facing south(ish), high energy demands during the daytime, and strong importance to the community.
If you own, manage or know of a site that could be a good fit, please fill out our site suggestion form here: https://forms.gle/hRAebi1KHFE7ReMDA