by Paul Kelly, Commission Member
Local power for local people – Settle Catholic Church helps found the region’s first Energy Local club.
St Mary & St Michael Settle church in the combined parish of Our Lady and St Boniface has been central to the development of a community club that shares locally generated renewable energy at local prices. SELC, the Settle Energy Local Club, sprang from an 80-member Action on Climate Emergency town group with the aim of keeping power in local hands and challenging the grip of the big energy companies.
SELC has partnered with the Energy Local community interest company who have pioneered a means for matching electricity generated in the town with use by local households and businesses, rather than being sold off cheaply to the grid and bought back at inflated prices. When the Settle parishioners in their LiveSimply group heard about the plans they quickly set about raising £10,000 to hugely expand the modest number of solar panels already installed on the church hall roof during a major renovation upgrade in 2017. The response was so positive that two years ago the parish covered the roof with extra solar up to almost 16kW of PV panels. The church does not use a lot of that power so it can export significant amounts of green electricity to the benefit of local club members. The price they pay is agreed annually by the Club’s own members, currently about half normal price at just 14p per kWh.
And the church benefits from receiving that exact same amount when its electricity is matched to members’ consumption. This is done every half hour using the smart meter system. For this reason all Club members have to be signed up with the same supplier, 100Green, that are a Which? recommended ‘deep green’ company. The supplier handles all the billing and provides grid electricity to customers when there isn’t enough local generation; it also pays for exported surplus when that’s not being matched to local consumers, although of course at a more typical lower price.
SELC is currently small with one other medium sized roof full of PV panels on a family run sofa manufacturer, and solar generation from three domestic roofs. These support 10 consumer members who are typically saving 10 – 15% off their bills overall. The church stands to earn over £1,000 a year from its electricity.
The parish is really proud to be able to so visibly encourage and support the town to a lower carbon future. They achieved the LiveSimply award in 2020. Like the other changes they made towards the award the community energy club is an opportunity to put into practice Catholic teaching about social and environmental justice. Already there are other churches and community buildings lining up to join as generators.
Indeed, Settle is a town with a strong tradition of community action. It has a community-owned library and swimming pool and Age UK is typical of the many volunteer groups with 100 volunteers in a town of 4,500 people. A community hydro power scheme began in 2009 which is now working towards joining the energy club instead of just selling its power to the grid. This will provide generation in winter and overnight when solar isn’t available and immediately mean an extra 30 consumers could join the Club. A challenge for SELC’s five volunteer founder directors, one of whom is a Settle parishioner, is to keep the number of consumer members in balance with the generator members so that the Club functions as intended.
Their priority is to build on this early experience and expand the number of consumers alongside new solar generators, but they have already started investigating the feasibility of a community wind project which could enable much greater numbers to benefit.
Setting up the Club has required persistence.
“The number of bodies involved in the metering and management of electricity is quite mind boggling,”
said parishioner and Club Secretary Paul Kelly.
“It has taken a lot of commitment from the first members and a lot of tenacity threading our way through the barriers.”
Not least in the case of the church has been the supply agreement for green energy that all parishes are contracted into nationally. SS Mary & Michael was to be the founder generator but electrical regulations greatly delayed getting the church’s smart meter data to 100Green.
But SELC is an example of the capacity of local people to make a difference to their area and contribute to decarbonisation across the UK. It attracted the attention of BBC Look North last autumn. Filmed before the church was able to join the programme item can be viewed here. Paul is also encouraged by the Local Power Plan published by the Government in February.
More general information can be found at energylocal.org.uk/settle or by email to settle@energylocal.org.uk