Imagine Presents…Community Energy event

By Lucy Meredith, Events Coordinator at Imagine Leeds

The theme of our second event in the 'Imagine Leeds Presents' series was ‘Community Energy’.

It was hosted, on the 21st October, by Clean Energy Leeds who are a not-for-profit community energy organisation. The project actually originated from the first phase of Climate Action Leeds and has now become a community benefit society in its own right but still has many members and supporters from the Climate Action Leeds Network. 

Community energy proved to be a very popular subject, in fact it was a full house at Imagine, with some people watching the presentations from the corridor!

It was really encouraging to see lots of new faces at Imagine Leeds. One person came along because they had attended ‘The Planet hasn’t stopped Burning’ event (part of Leeds International Festival of Ideas at Leeds Playhouse) and heard Lucy from Clean Energy Leeds mention this event to Jurgen Maier (CEO of Great British Energy) in the Q&A... It was great to hear that people are so motivated to get involved!

A bit about Clean Energy Leeds (CEL): Clean Energy Leeds is Leeds' community energy organisation, a community benefit society and a not-for-profit organisation. 

Meaning any money made from projects goes back into the next project to support the growth of community energy projects in Leeds in a circular economy model. 

After an introduction to how the community energy model works, the CEL team told us about two rather exciting projects. This first is Community Solar, funded by GB Energy and working with four community centres in Leeds to help them improve their buildings and save energy and also get community solar panels fitted to provide cheap clean energy to the centres.

CEL are also planning a Community Owned Wind Turbine and have identified some potential sites on the outskirts of the city using Leeds City Council's wind map. The Wind Turbine will be 100 percent community-owned and has massive potential to power over 300 homes plus generate a large amount of income to fund even more community projects. This project is in the very early stages but we look forward to hearing more about it in the future.

Hopefully we will see more community energy projects popping up across the city in the next few years.

If you want to get involved with Clean Energy Leeds, contact hello@cleanenergyleeds.org.uk

Also do sign up for our December Imagine Presents event which is a Crafty Christmas Social with the Leeds Craftivists, Monday 14th December, 6pm onwards at Imagine Leeds.