Written by Shimon Shoshani, Co-founder and Commercial Director, Plugyy Energy Solutions
Whilst large-scale renewable energy projects play a key role in decarbonisation, locally owned community energy projects have a key part to play by enabling distributed sustainable energy, to benefit local residents and enhance grid flexibility.
Locally owned projects help keep wealth within the communities, create jobs and can provide direct savings and benefits to local communities and businesses.
Plugyy Energy Solutions (www.plugyy.com ) develops, builds and operates Solar energy and EV charging for communities, businesses and local authorities.
Leveraging our diverse experience and expertise in renewable energy for over 20 years, we provide in-house end to end support for our customers and partners - from initial feasibility, designing and developing projects to installing and operating the assets.
Throughout the UK, community energy initiatives are already strengthening communities and helping to create stronger local economies. We believe community energy has significant opportunities for expansion - with the right support and expertise, generation capacity could rapidly increase, enabling more benefits for local communities and energy transition initiatives.
Plugyy works with community energy groups to support Solar and EV charging projects at all stages. Across England, Wales and Scotland, we offer development and technical support throughout the various stages of projects.
- We act as a technical & commercial advisor at all stages of Solar (rooftop or ground-mounted solar, with or without battery storage) or EV charging projects - from the initial feasibility to establish the technical and commercial viability, though the detailed development of the project, supporting the design, grid connection applications, technical surveys etc.
- We also act as a turn-key (EPC) contractor to construct and operate solar (rooftop or ground-mounted, with or without battery storage) or EV charging projects.
Shared-ownership of Solar projects
The UK government has set out a vision for scaling up local energy, with 8 GW of shared community-owned energy capacity targeted by 2030.
We believe that cooperation between local communities and renewable energy developers such as ourselves will help achieve these ambitious targets.
We are keen to discuss with community energy groups across the country who are interested in co-development and shared-ownership of solar projects.
- Our approach is very much focussed on cooperation with local community groups from the start of the project - ideally cooperating to identify and originate together the most suitable projects that work best from a local and community perspective and also stack up from a technical/financial view, and to co-develop the project to then be built and operated under a shared-ownership model, with significant ownership levels by the community depending on their interest and appetite.
- Our focus is on small to medium scale solar projects, ranging from a few hundred kW rooftop projects to several MWs typically for ground mounted solar.
FREE Advice Sessions during Community Energy Fortnight
If your organisation needs insights on solar project complexities, we would like to offer our help!
We will be running a series of lunchtime online Q&A workshops during Community Energy Fortnight on 2nd, 3rd and 4th of July.
2nd July - Developing a bankable solar project
3rd July - Operating a safe and efficient solar project
4th July - Dealing with the complexities and challenges of developing a solar project
From 2nd to 4th July we are also offering free private 1:1 advice sessions (30 minutes) on any topic you might want to discuss related to solar / storage / EV charging (during these sessions we are also very happy to carry out initial designs live on screen, as we’ve found that is sometimes helpful).
To register for the lunchtime online Q&A workshops and for the FREE 1:1 online advice sessions please email jill@plugyy.com.
Please also feel free to let Jill know any questions you would like to discuss during the sessions.
All the details of each session are available on the Community Energy Fortnight: events calendar here.