Community Owned Renewable Energy

Across the UK, community energy groups are providing renewable energy generation and energy saving advice; returning power and profit to communities.

Harborough Community Energy are developing local solar energy projects to share clean, affordable power across our community.

If these aims inspire you, we’d love you to join us.

What’s great about Community Owned Renewable Energy?

  • Save local organisations money on their energy bills

  • Reduce carbon emissions

  • Support our local community

  • Zero installation costs of maintenance costs for the site owner

How Community Energy Works:

  • HCE identifies suitable buildings for renewable energy projects.

  • Anyone can invest, from small to large amounts.

  • Each investor becomes a scheme member and has a say in how the income is spent in the community.

  • HCE uses the invested funds to purchase and install solar panels on the site.

  • The solar panels provide the site with cheaper, cleaner energy.

  • Income from the energy sold to the host and to the grid is used to:

    • Repay investors’ capital plus an average annual interest (circa 5%).

    • Pay maintenance and repair costs.

    • Build a community fund to support the development of further community energy schemes and other community projects, chosen by the scheme members, to benefit the Harborough District.

What about other renewable energy methods?

For now, our focus is on solar PV installations on existing buildings, but community energy is about all methods of renewable energy - so we are open to other ideas too.

Do you know a great spot for Community Owned Renewable Energy?

We are Harborough locals, so we know Harborough! But we don’t know everything or everywhere!

If you have an idea for a building that you think would be great for Community Owned Renewable Energy, send us a message and we will have a look at it. Great spots for Community Owned Solar are usually buildings with large roofs and high energy usage.

We will always try to send you an update to let you know what we find.

To help us to find the site you’re suggesting, please let us know the address, or the what3words information for the location.

Thank you 💚