The electrification of transport is resulting in an increased number of electric vehicles (EVs) on UK roads. This growth is expected to continue. EVs are being developed with larger batteries, that charge at faster rates and require longer to charge.
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The energy sector is undergoing a transition towards becoming cleaner and more sustainable. Low carbon technologies, such as wind, solar PV, battery storage and EVs are becoming price competitive and increasingly part of the energy mix. Large centralised generators are being displaced by decentralised generation. In parallel, there is an increasing environmental awareness in society; habits, lifestyles and consumption choices are changing, including heightened consumer interest in their energy sources but more importantly, about whether energy comes from clean forms of generation.
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Yealm Community Energy (YCE) is a well-established member-owned community group serving the Yealm area. The aim of the group is to bring local renewable energy installations such as solar farms into community ownership, then use the profits to fund local environmental projects. YCE owns an existing solar farm at Newton Downs which generates enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 2,000 average homes.
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Nortech Management Ltd is a specialist provider of monitoring technology products and services to utilities, generators and system integrators. As well as jointly developing the original LV-CAP solution and supplying its iHost platform to the project, Nortech has taken an active role in developing apps.
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The University of Strathclyde’s Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering has accessed funding through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to conduct research into distribution network loading characteristics utilising real-time data from the OpenLV project. The project will be conducted through the University’s Power Networks Demonstration Centre which presents the opportunity to research, test and demonstrate hardware, software and integrated systems solutions in a safe, controlled environment with access to real 11kV and LV distribution networks.
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The OpenLV project is making local electricity data available to selected community groups in the Western Power Distribution license area. The project generated a lot of interest from community organisations who were interested in understanding their community electricity demand patterns and connecting low carbon technologies to the LV network. Seven organisations were chosen to take part in the project. They had a wide range of ideas about what they wanted to achieve with the data that OpenLV could provide.
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BWCE is an early pioneer of community-owned energy generation. The group is volunteer led, with two paid staff members, and it has 18 sub-100kW solar arrays (totalling 472kW), five ground-mounted solar arrays (totalling 11.84MW), and 13.5kW of hydro. BWCE’s assets generate sufficient electricity over a whole year to power 4,000 typical homes in the area.
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Exeter Community Energy is an established community energy group serving the Exeter area. It is volunteer led, with many local professionals giving their time. The group has been instrumental in the provision of 209 kW of solar PV on the roofs of Local Authority and local business properties and it is in the early stages of developing a hydro scheme in the city.
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Marshfield is a village of around 850 households in South Gloucestershire. Marshfield Energy Group is volunteer-led, with support from the Community Land Trust. The local primary school has a 12 kW wind turbine and there are 30 domestic PV installations ranging between 3-4 kW each. The community group has undertaken research in the past, exploring the potential for a solar farm, wind, and anaerobic digester generation schemes.
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Owen Square Community Energy initiative is a member-based local energy supply company jointly operated by Easton Community Centre (ECC), local energy group Easton Energy Group (EEG) and Bristol-based microgrid developer Clean Energy Prospector (CEPRO). The Owen Square Community Energy initiative, which began in 2014, is tackling the challenge of how to develop a replicable business case for intensive low carbon retrofits of homes. It includes plans to establish a ‘community microgrid’, incorporating a local supply company, community scale thermal storage, domestic heat pumps and solar PV, and to explore the potential economic gains from energy markets and grid services.
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