The Phoenix team were very excited to receive news recently that our grant application from the Community Energy Fund has been successful.
What is the grant for?
The £40,000 grant will be used to fund a feasibility study to consider how we could use a community battery alongside new or existing relatively large-scale renewable energy installations for community benefit.
What’s a community battery?
The idea for the community battery was inspired by an Australian project (click the image below to watch a short film on YouTube):
Whilst the precise details of the scheme will be slightly different to the Australian example – due to differences in the set up of the UK electricity market – the principles are similar.
How will the community benefit?
There are two ultimate objectives of the project:
- Increase the amount of renewable energy generated and used locally, to make our community more resilient
- Raise money for the Phoenix Community Energy Fund to enable energy efficiency initiatives across the community.
The feasibility study will help to determine the specifics of the model – and indeed whether it is financially viable.
What’s next?
We’ve appointed the company who we will work with on the study, and it will start as soon as we receive the funding (expected within the next couple of months). The study itself will take approximately 3 months to complete.
In the meantime, any local companies interested in finding out more about community batteries and how one could potentially benefit their business, do get in touch with the Phoenix team at hello@phoenixec.org.uk. We’d love to hear from you!