Our story
Community Energy Together (CET) is a new collaboration between five community energy groups in England and Wales who have launched share offers (July 2023) to fund the transfer of seven operational solar farms into community ownership.
The CET share offers will enable people across the UK who care about climate change to put their money to work to tackle the issue directly while earning a fair return. Investing in these solar farms supports the community energy revolution, democratising energy ownership through community-owned renewables that create benefits for everyone.
Bringing the portfolio of seven solar farms into community ownership will increase the capacity of community owned solar energy in England and Wales by approximately 20%. Over the projects' lifetime it will generate a collective community benefit fund of around £20 million to support local social and environmental projects and develop new community renewable projects.
The five Community Benefit Societies already have strong track records of delivering local social, environmental and carbon-reduction projects, from sustainable transport schemes to tackling fuel poverty. This potential will increase exponentially once the solar farms are in full community ownership.
The solar farms are in Shropshire, Kent, Devon, Isle of Wight and Swansea. They have a collective total capacity of 36MWp, enough to power around 12,750 homes and save circa 317,000 tonnes of CO2 over their lifetimes.
Belonging to Community Energy Together is like being part of a larger, supportive family, working together to get the best out of all the solar farms and maximising the surpluses they can all devote to the local green economy.
Investors can choose to invest in one or all of the solar farms and earn a fair target return of 6% per year while knowing their money is going directly to tackle climate change.
Our advice
Five different community energy groups across England and Wales working together with a shared aim has huge benefits but also presented big logistical challenges! Online meetings helped enormously.
This project has been several years in the making; Covid, war in Ukraine and a financial recession all caused hiccups on the way. Raising funds became a serious issue until CORE (Community Owned Renewable Energy) stepped in with a unique financing model model enabling the groups to reduce their legal and financial transaction costs and to support each other
in the event of any one organisation having financial or technical difficulties.
Whilst owning their individual solar farms, the groups are committed to working together and supporting each other so they can benefit from each other's expertise, experience and share knowledge and lessons along the way.
Levels of experience and types of expertise varied greatly among the 5 different groups so the ability to learn from each other - and share practical knowledge - was invaluable.
Power to Change also provided important support to the Community Benefit Societies to ensure they are well equipped to develop these solar farms into successful zero carbon assets that will deliver for local people and nature for many years to come.
Our metrics
Target funds raised: £2.5 million collectively
Number of investors
Target Community Benefit Funds generated: £20 million
Number of homes supplied (equivalent) with renewable energy: 12,750
