After sparking off Brighton & Hove’s first Community Owned renewable energy project in 2010, Brighton Energy Co-op now produces a whopping 3% of Brighton & Hove’s electricity.
Last month Brighton Energy Co-op celebrated their tenth year by finishing their 62nd solar system – 100kW of solar panels on top of Greater Brighton MET College - and are now turning their attention to Electric Vehicles (EV) and the development of a local network of solar powered charge points.
Through their solar systems on local schools, colleges, universities and businesses Brighton Energy Co-op (BEC) is the largest solar energy producer in the South East region. Projects are funded by local people who want to see more clean energy produced for their community. Local people can become BEC Members by purchasing shares in the Co-op. These funds are then used to purchase and install the solar panels and produce clean, green electricity.
13 local schools now benefit from BEC’s community funded ‘Free Solar For Schools’ project, with free installation, free maintenance, reduced energy bills and massive carbon savings. Balfour Junior School was completed in Feb 2020. BEC set up a special ‘Community Fund’ to pay for a ‘Schools Solar Education Programme’ and hopes to install free solar on many more schools in the Brighton & Hove area.
BEC Chairman, Will Cottrell, said: “BEC have certainly achieved a great deal over the last 10 years and there’s plenty of spark left in us yet!”
If you would like to help support local community owned renewable electricity could you promote the great work Brighton Energy Co-op has done over the last 10 years?
If you’d like to know more about their 30+ local solar sites visit www.brightonenergy.org.uk
To hear about future BEC share offers and stay on top of renewables news sign up to their famously punchy newsletter here https://brightonenergy.org.uk/subscribe/
BEC Chairman, Will Cottrell, is available for live radio and tv interview, photographs at one of the solar site (see https://brightonenergy.org.uk/home/our-projects/ ) and telephone or zoom interview. Please call Atlanta on 07767 341 059 to arrange.
Notes to Editor: Co-operative established: 10th Nov 2010 First share launch: May 2012. Free Solar For Schools: 13 Brighton & Hove schools fitted out with free solar in 2019 and early 2020.
Brighton Energy Co-op is a community renewable energy project based in Brighton & Hove. The Co-op currently has 600 members and an executive team consisting of a Chairman, Will Cottrell, Co-founder Damian Tow and New Projects Director Matt Brown. Brighton Energy Co-op aims to run and finance renewable energy projects in Brighton & Hove whilst benefiting the local community and the environment. They want to enable people to invest money into renewable energy projects that provide a small financial return to its members, but also deliver environmental and social benefits. In the process they aim to make the running of renewable projects more democratic.