Our story
Brighton Energy Coop’s idea is simple: everyone puts in a bit of cash and collectively we build big solar energy systems. Money from selling solar electric gets distributed back to members, and to our Community Fund.
We have hundreds of members from in and out of the Brighton & Hove area – together we’ve already built more than £3million of community-funded solar PV.
BEC was inspired by a trip to the Paris Climate Change Conference COP21 back in 2015 by BEC Director, Will Cottrell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJqwu4jkSDs
We have hundreds of members from in and out of the Brighton & Hove area – together we’ve already built more than £3million of community-funded solar PV.
BEC was inspired by a trip to the Paris Climate Change Conference COP21 back in 2015 by BEC Director, Will Cottrell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJqwu4jkSDs
Our advice
Brighton Energy Co-op's Will Cottrell - ideas for marketing your community energy project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08qPMRITABY
A lot of useful research is contained in this award-winning MSc dissertation done by a SPRU researcher from Sussex University, who shadowed BEC for a couple of years.
http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/53383/1/hielscherbrightonenergyreport.pdf.
Our metrics
- Amount of solar electric produced: 3325mWh
- Number of educational facilities given free solar.
- Number of local businesses given free solar.
- Amount of £s saved by our solar partners.
- Number of solar-connected EV chargers.
- Number of educational facilities in BEC Solar Education Programme
- Number of members investing in community-owned solar electric.
- Interest payments received by our members.
Read more: https://brightonenergy.org.uk
