Oldham Community Power

This project seeks to provide affordable, sustainable and low carbon energy by using both council owned and community-based buildings for solar installations. The scheme is primarily funded through a community share scheme, with secondary support through grants and loans provided by the local council. The first phase has been focussed on installing solar energy on local school buildings and making energy efficiency improvements. Setup as a social enterprise; the directors are volunteers, representing the community shareholders. Profits are used to repay investors and to support local development projects. A series of partnerships support the organisation, including having a volunteer director from the local authority and appointed installers. Current volunteer directors have key experience in sustainable energy infrastructure to steer the project accordingly. Phase two of the project has won a grant to investigate how to engage low income houses in sustainable energy production, as this is where it could have considerable community improvement impacts.
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