Event Report

Around 30 people met at the Crediton Football Club to hear the latest news about Sustainable Crediton's Energy Group's idea to create Crediton's own Community Energy Company.

After a round of introductions by Linda Lever, Charles Mossman kicked off proceedings with a presentation about the Energy Group's big idea. Charles explained what community energy is, gave some examples of local community groups already generating electricity, why we want to start a company in Crediton, what the benefits will be, and how we may go about the process of setting up a company to generate electricity. Then Charles showed a couple of photos of Lords Meadow and a Crediton supermarket to show the potential for solar photovoltaic electricity generation in Crediton.

Following Charles, Andrew Shadrake from Plymouth Community Energy, explained how Plymouth is going about generating electricity for the community's benefit. In Plymouth numoerous schools have agreed to have solar panels. A public share offer is currently open to attempt to raise the money to install the panels. The schools will get free electricity, investors a good return on their investment and the profits will go back to the community to do more energy projects.

Next up was Hertha Wood to explain how Exeter was getting on with their community energy project which is being launched over the weekend of May 17/18 with an open homes weekend, an energy fair and a public share offer.

Finally on the agenda was a panel to answer any questions from the audience. On the panel were Charles, Linda, Hertha, Andrew ,Ben Eardley - Devon Association for Renewable Energy, Jake Burnyeat - Communities for Renewables CIC and Iain Beath - Renewable Power.

There were about 45 minutes of questions and answers, not only about community energy but also the "big picture" of reducing our use of fossil fuels generally by energy efficiency and demand management.

Feedback after the event showed that people found the event very stimulating and several people volunteered to help us in the arrangements to create our new venture.

An introduction to Crediton Community Energy.

"a community-owned social enterprise..."

Our vision is for renewable energy projects to create practical low-carbon solutions that address our reliance on fossil fuels and the associated climate impact......and which benefit our town, its people and the environment.

At this public meeting we will introduce the team running our project, explain our vision, show you examples of other successful local community energy projects including a talk by Andrew Shadrake of Plymouth Community Energy and enable you to ask questions.