Bath & West Community Energy – Installing Renewable Energy and Supporting Communities — Grow Batheaston

In January 2021 Grow Batheaston received a £5000 grant from the Bath & West Community Energy (BWCE) Fund for the Grow Batheaston Store. However after a long unsuccessful search for premises and as they are unable at present to overcome the logistical delivery and storage issues the money has now been agreed to be reallocated to create a new pop up market for the village and to also be used towards funding some of the trees and plants for the planned forest garden in the back section of the secret garden off the riverside car park. This grant was one of 69 grants the BWCE Fund has awarded to community projects in the past seven years (including a contribution towards the solar panels on Batheaston Village Hall).

This funding is made available through the surplus income generated by BWCE’s renewable energy projects. So, who are BWCE, what do they do and how do they manage to give money out to community projects?

Bath & West Community Energy (BWCE) is a not-for-profit community energy organisation with a mission to increase generation of renewable energy, build community ownership of renewables and provide community benefit.

BWCE noticeboard with Old Mill water wheel in the background

Renewable energy generation

We’ve installed enough solar power on rooftops (schools, sports clubs, businesses, council offices) and at our solar farms to power the equivalent of 4,000 average homes. We also installed and own the water wheel at the Old Mill Hotel. Recently, through our Flex Community, we have started to broaden our work beyond just renewable installation to embrace energy demand management (crucial for the transition to a clean energy grid) and have recently been researching the viability of setting up a community owned, solar powered electric vehicle charging network.

Community ownership of renewables

We have over 850 members who invest money in us, receive annual interest and get a vote in the organisation. These, together with bondholders, have helped us raise over £11 million. Many members also actively support the organisation as elected Directors, as members of working groups or through our Supporters Network (which is also open to non-members).

The solar barn at Middle Ground Growers funded by the BWCE Funded

Providing Community Benefit.

We are set up as Community Benefit Society and have re-invested £290,000 surplus income from our renewable projects into our BWCE Fund (set us as an independent charity). This provides funding for projects aiming to reduce carbon emissions, which is interpreted very broadly to include local food & growing, energy efficiency in buildings, re-use and recycling, reducing fuel poverty, low carbon transport, environmental education, water conservation, energy audits and advice.

Our panels on Lewis House, B&NES Council building in manvers Street

Help us make an impact

We have a number of new renewable projects in development on both buildings and land in the B&NES area. Once installed these projects will not only boost the proportion of the local grid powered by renewable energy but will also generate more funding for community projects like Grow Batheaston.

If you support what we are doing, please help us to maximise our impact!

· Keep in touch by signing up to our monthly newsletter

· Help us boost our profile by becoming a BWCE Supporter

· Invest money to support our new projects by becoming a member

For more information on BWCE check out our website or contact Nick Bird nick.bird@bwce.coop or 07517 100889