Monthly Archives: January 2015

Renewable Energy Coops

Chase Community Solar

Chase Community Solar

Many people, like me, share a vision of a very different energy future. A future of low carbon, renewable energy, as far as possible cooperatively owned and controlled by local communities. I’ve written and spoken about this extensively. Despite the snow and ice a good number of people came to hear me talk in Ludlow on Thursday on the subject of ‘Renewables & Resilience’, organised by the wonderful Ludlow 21 group.

There is something of a fight-back by the big six and their political supporters who basically want to continue with ‘business as usual’. Changes are coming to both the tax regime and the legal structures that can be used for community renewables. George Monbiot wrote about these changes in rather alarming terms, and I wrote a blog that I posted and then took off-line 24 hours later. Having checked with Jon Halle at Sharenergy and a few other knowledgeable people, the situation is not as bleak as George suggests. It’s complicated, and still not totally clear, but it looks like community renewable energy will hopefully have a future after the changes. Meanwhile there is something of a surge of new coops launching over the next few weeks to beat the April tax changes.

Chase community solar are working with Cannock Chase Council to put solar panels onto the roofs of low income families and pensioners in Council housing. This will help drastically to reduce both fuel poverty and carbon emissions. The project will start doing 150 roofs and hope soon to expand to 300. Lots of other great projects moving forward, including the Ludlow hydro project: check-out the Sharenergy website for more information.

A couple of years ago I was running some of my evening classes in Ledbury. Out of those sessions an excellent group of local people came together and decided they wanted to start a renewable energy coop in Ledbury. After many trials and tribulations they are at last ready to start. I’m honoured to be speaking at their launch at the Feathers Hotel in Ledbury, 7.00pm, Thursday 5th February. If possible, do come, invest and join the coop: be part of the community renewable energy revolution.

Sharenergy http://www.sharenergy.coop/

The Monbiot article http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2015/jan/23/community-energy-companies-big-six-big-society?CMP=EMCENVEML1631

 

 

The Green Surge Goes Exponential!

Green Party canvassing in Leominster

Green Party canvassing in Leominster

In November I blogged about how politics in Britain is changing from a two or three party system to a six or seven party system. I mentioned the declining membership of the three tired old parties and the growth of the so called smaller parties. In December I wrote about the explosive growth of Podemos in Spain, and compared it to our Green Party’s surge in membership.

I’ve been a supporter of the Green Party, and before that the Ecology Party, since way back, pretty much to the founding days in 1973. I only got around to first joining the party in 1983, the year we founded the Herefordshire branch. The party did quite well in the 80’s, membership peaked at about 20,000 before sliding down during the 1990’s to about 5,000 where it stayed until 2003.

Very slowly numbers started to rise, by 2010 we had 10,000 and by 1st January 2014 we had 13,809 members. The rate of increase slowly grew. By the autumn the Green Surge was really building: we passed the 20,000 mark on 3rd October, 24,435 on 4th November, 25,799 on 18th November and 27,618 on 2nd December. That’s when things really started to go crazy. On 12th January we had 32,629 and 35,481 on 15th January. All these figures are just for the Green Party of England and Wales, but of course to compare with other UK parties we should add the numbers from our sister parties in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which have also seen impressive growth. These combined figures give us totals of 42,500 on 14th January, 43,829 on 15th January and 44,713 on 16th January, overtaking UKIP on 14th and the LibDems on 16th! Still a way to go before we overtake the membership of the Conservative and Labour parties, but at the current rate of growth this is possible, perhaps even before the election on 7th May!

Yesterday a couple of dozen of us were out canvassing in Leominster. Such a buzz of excitement! Come and join us. Be a part of the Change!