A DIFFERENT KIND OF LOCAL ENERGY

Unlike big energy companies, the Hackney Solar Scheme is designed to work for the communities that we operate within.  We are committed to sharing our success with the people that we serve.

That’s why we are building a different kind of energy system.  One that shares its profits with our local customers, not distant shareholders.  We’re working to fix the problems in the energy industry and build an approach that benefits you.

We call our approach the Community Grid

THE COMMUNITY GRID APPROACH

The more people who sign up, the more money each of them can save. Read on to find our more.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

As our community gets bigger, the fixed costs contributions for individual customers get smaller.

  • Running the solar scheme involves various fixed costs for each customer.  These are things like the cost of maintaining your meter, data collection and collation for accurate billing.

    These costs are covered by your standing charge.  Because you are connected to a localised Community Grid they are cheaper than the costs charged by national suppliers.

    The more customers sign up, the more economies of scale we can apply to these things.

  • There are also fixed costs for each Community Grid.  These come from the investment in installing and costs of maintaining the overall solar system and its grid connection.  These are similar to the individual customer fixed costs. Just on a larger scale.

    A proportion of your electricity unit costs are used to cover these.

    Since these costs are fixed for each Community Grid, the more customers sign up, the less each customer needs to pay.

  • We supply you with a combination of energy from the solar panels on your roof and energy that we buy wholesale from the National Grid.  Because of our unique proposition we have been allowed to join one of the biggest council-led wholesale energy purchasing schemes in the UK.

    Legally, we must sell this energy to you for the same price that we pay for it. So you can be sure that your electricity price will always be competitive.

    And yes, every customer makes a difference to this wholesale price, however small.

  • Once the fixed costs and wholesale energy costs of operating the scheme are paid for, any remaining money generated by the unit charges for the solar electricity creates profits for the scheme.

    But we don’t pocket those profits ourselves or send them to faceless shareholders.  We invest them and share them with our Community Grid members.

    25% of profits generated after fixed costs are used to help us run and expand the scheme.  75% are returned to customers as additional bill savings.

A MODEL THAT WORKS FOR YOU

Protection From Volatile Global Energy Prices

The price you pay for the solar direct from your roof is disconnected from global energy markets.  This means that if global prices fo up, as the did due to the war in Ukraine, we can’t just put our prices up.

What will go up is the amount of money that you are saving on your electricty versus market prices.

This means you are getting long term energy bill price security - thanks to your roof top solar panels.

Bill Savings Shared Equally Across the Scheme

When we share bill savings with our customers, we do so equally with all community members in each local scheme.

This way, it doesn’t matter if you happen to be at home more than someone else. Of if there building has more solar than yours.

Everyone in the solar scheme receives the same benefit.

Community Incentives. Helping Us Helps You.

By helping sign up your neighbours, not only can you help them save money, you can also save money yourself! It truly is a Community Grid.

Email us on hackneysolar@emergent.energy for more details of our additional community incentives.

Put some more sunshine in your bank account today!