Community Energy Champions!

The team here at Joju are delighted to have been awarded the prize for “Best Use of Solar in a Community Energy Project” at the Solar Power Portal Awards 2017.  These awards are the most prestigious in the solar industry, and it is an honour to have been recognised in this way.

We were awarded the prize for our work over Summer 2016, when we delivered a staggering 2.5MW of community solar across 46 sites in just 10 weeks.  This is by far the largest and fastest roll out of community solar the UK has seen.

Work with our Community Energy Partners

The award is particularly pleasing as it captures work with all our major long-term community energy partners.

• Energy4All worked through 3 purpose built Co-ops – The M&S Energy Society, The Schools Energy Coop, and Reading Community Energy Society.
  • The M&S Energy Society was the first major engagement of a corporate institution with the community energy sector. The Coop was a huge success – demonstrating the ability of community energy to provide project finance at lower cost of capital than conventional routes; provide a community benefit fund; and offer the opportunity for engagement with local communities. We installed on 8 M&S stores, totalling 1MW of capacity, with individual sites ranging in capacity from 50kW to 225kW.
  • The Schools Energy Coop – Joju installed 15 schools schemes for the Schools Energy Coop
  • Reading Community Energy Society – installed on 10 community buildings across the town, and also acted as a conduit for a further 5 sites for Reading Council.
• The Low Carbon Hub installed a 635kWp rooftop installation at Prodrive – the largest community rooftop scheme in the country. The Low Carbon Hub also completed 4 schools project over the summer.
• Finally the brilliant 10:10 Climate Action’s Solar Schools programme generated superb engagement of schoolchildren and parents during their fundraising activites.  We were delighted to install on 5 schools for them nationwide. The Solar Schools project left an amazing legacy of new skills, stronger community links and local pride. Children (and grownups) learned about climate change and energy in a whole new way, and the money the schools saved on their energy bills has made them more resilient for the future.

 

It was doubly rewarding to be presented with our award by Robert Llewellyn and Emma Bridge.  Robert, of course, is a Joju customer, and we are strong supporters of Community Energy England (of which Emma is CEO).  The award was collected by our engineers Ed Baughan and Laura Moreno, who worked incredibly hard to deliver this project, with Rachael Hunter from Energy4All.

Number One for Community Energy

The award cements our place as the number one installers of community energy in the UK. The past three years have now seen Joju Solar win this award twice (in 2015 and this year). Our summer 2016 activities represent 2% of all community renewables in the UK (including wind and hydro).  To date we have installed approximately 5% of all community renewables in the country.

Further Reading

• Find out how we work with communities by visiting our Community Energy Sector page
• See why M&S wanted a community solar scheme for its programme of supermarket installs
• At the time of build, the 635 kW at Prodrive was the largest community rooftop installation in the UK
• 10:10’s Solar Schools has inspired thousands of schoolchildren across the country.