Interns from Hackney solar co-op launch appeal against funding cuts

A Banister House Solar Message from Tor Kristoffersen on Vimeo.

Young interns working for Hackney’s first community-owned solar co-op have urged the Prime Minister not to cut the funding small renewables need to survive.

Hackney Energy’s Banister House Project in Homerton – the largest community energy project built on social housing in the UK – relies on the government’s Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme for its success.

The Feed-in Tariff supports small-scale renewable energy projects by providing funding in exchange for the generation of electricity through renewable or low-carbon sources such as solar panels or wind turbines.

Young people from the estate taking part in an internship programme run by community energy specialists Repowering London, have almost completed installing solar panels on the estate’s 14 rooftops.

But the Conservative government’s proposal to cut the FIT scheme by up to 87 per cent has raised doubts about the future of projects like Banister House.

At risk

Agamemnon Otero, CEO of Repowering London and Manager of the Banister House solar project said cutting the FIT would have a “dramatic impact” on the financial model and the viability for future projects of this kind.

Friends of the Earth has criticised the move, saying the cuts will “decimate the solar industry in the UK” and cause hundreds of job losses in clean energy.

Together with Repowering London and Hackney Council, residents from the Banister House estate raised £142,000 to finance solar PV panels on the estate’s roofs.

Revenue generated through the FIT is to be used to pay investors an annual return but also feeds into the Banister House Solar community fund, used for fuel poverty, future internship placements and training initiatives.

Solar ‘so close’

Lauren Cook, a solar analyst at the Renewable Energy Association, a not-for-profit trade association representing British renewable energy producers, said the FIT was “critical” to encouraging community projects such as the Banister House project.

Cook said: “Skills development, training, and empowering people to better manage their energy and reduce their bills are some of the key reasons why we support solar.

“Our research finds that there have been years of technological innovation in solar PV and there have been hundreds of thousands of panels installed across the UK. These factors have taken this technology to within a stone’s throw of cost parity with fossil fuels.

“Despite solar being so close, the Conservative government now appears committed to cutting support, such as the Feed-in Tariff.”

‘Not the whole picture’

A petition against the proposals, calling on the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to “urgently review” the cuts to the FIT scheme has gathered over 20,000 signatures.

Responding to the petition in a statement, DECC said: “The generation tariff is not the whole picture for those benefitting from generating their own electricity. FIT recipients also benefit from significant savings on their electricity bills as well as payments for exporting electricity to the grid.

“Factoring these benefits into the overall lifetime revenue for small-scale solar investors results in an overall reduction in revenue of 40 per cent, rather than 87 per cent, and this still provides an appropriate return on investment.”

Update : This story was edited to clarify the Banister House interns are urging the government not to cut the TIF funding model. The Banister House solar co-op is already registered with FIT and so is not at risk.