Melisa Gooding: Bringing Power To The People With North Kensington Community Energy

Repowering London’s aim is to empower communities to take greater control of their energy generation and use. We install solar panels that are community-owned, literally bringing power to the people. Our latest scheme is North Kensington Community Energy (NKCE), a Community Benefit Society bringing community-owned solar power to Kensington & Chelsea.

Our new share offer

We have a new share offer that we are excited to announce. A few weeks ago, we installed 138 kWp of solar panels on the Westway Sports Centre in North Kensington. To finance these solar panels, we will open a share offer today, 22 October. We chose this location as the Westway’s mission, ‘to work together with the local community to enable North Kensington to thrive’, is inline with ours. It is also a pinnacle and well known place.

The project will generate a 3% annual return on investment and save up to 28 tonnes of CO2 a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. It will also create a Community Fund of £42,000 to benefit the local area. All investors become members of NKCE and have a say on how the co-op is run and the Community Fund is spent. 

This is not NKCE’s first project. In 2019, we installed 83 kW of solar panels on two schools and a community centre, and the 144 investors are now members of NKCE. For this project, we have lowered our minimum investment amount from £250 to £100 (and £50 for residents under 25 or on benefits), this will mean that more people can get involved in the project as it will attract a majority of smaller investment from the local community.

What have we learnt?

Starting a community energy project has been a journey, rewarding but challenging at times. We wanted to share some of the things we wish we had known at the start:

• It is important to understand your location, target audience and how best to reach them. Kensington and Chelsea as a borough suffers from a high degree of income inequality and lacks community cohesion as well as strong environmental movements. North Kensington is an area with above average poverty rates, child poverty, and receipt of out-of-work benefits. This has brought some fundraising challenges that we have not had in other boroughs. This informed our decision to lower the minimum share investment.

• Build meaningful relationships with stakeholders in the community. You need to get to know your community and how to interact with them, this could be setting up events in the local town hall/ on zoom and build relations with the council.

• Find out what motivates your local community. You can find this out by conducting surveys or holding events. The Director, volunteers and members of NKCE have identified three key priorities to spend the Community Fund on that include; ‘Support, lobbying and campaigning for better air quality’, ‘Opportunities for young people’ and ‘Access to green spaces and healthy living’. 

• It is important to work on your message and advertising, make it informative, snappy and eye catching to drive awareness. 

• More people = more power! Advertise volunteer/intern positions to help spread the word and then delegate roles and have weekly catch ups to ensure ease of communication.

Find out more about North Kensington Community Energy here. 

Melisa works in the renewable energy industry and has recently started volunteering with Repowering London. She is interested in sustainability, renewable energy and the circular economy. She has enjoyed Zooming other like minded people at Repower and working with a great team. Melisa would encourage others to get involved in similar projects.