Brookside Academy in Street, Somerset, is now making £4,000 a year in savings thanks to their community funded solar panels.

Solarsense worked with Avalon Community Energy (ACE) to design and install a bespoke solar PV system for the Somerset based school back in 2017 as part of an upcoming building extension.

ACE presented a community energy scheme to the school’s board that required no capital outlay. Local shareholders – known as ‘social investors’ – fund the community energy scheme, and any profits are then transferred into a community benefit fund for projects such as local fuel-poverty reduction.

The school was motivated by the ability to generate their own electricity, selling any excess back to the grid, and being more vigilant about their usage through the online tools that came with the package. They really bought into the idea that the money behind the scheme would stay in the community, potentially benefiting local families.

As Brookside is an independent academy, there were a number of boxes to tick and the school along with ACE had to negotiate with the council, the Education and Skills Funding Agency and the Department for Education. However, once this was complete, the period of installation took place across a couple of weeks with little to no impact on school life.

Last year the school used 71% of the energy that they generated, which the school pays ACE for at a discounted price; the rest is exported to the National Grid. Importantly, during the same period, the panels saved more than 40 tonnes of carbon emissions, the equivalent of driving a car from Glastonbury to Minsk!