Renewables belong to everyone
Prospect member Richard Lane writes about how his passion for environmentalism led to a job in renewables, championing community energy and the important role that trade unions are playing as we transition away from fossil fuels.
I became interested in renewable energy when it was still seen as the preserve of the cranks. I was bitten by the environmentalist bug in the 1990s, watching road protesters try to save pockets of nature from an unsustainable ever-expanding car-culture, so I was used to being thought of as an oddity among fellow engineering students.
To me, renewables are more than just a green option – they’re an opportunity to change our relationship with energy. Unlike fossil and nuclear fuels, which are extracted at great engineering expense, the fuel for renewables lands on every house, blows across every field and flows through every town. Renewables can belong to all of us, if we want them.
Richard Lane
After graduating from my engineering degree I hopped for a while between jobs I could do without troubling my conscience, including work for an NGO and for the Green Party, before I was recruited as a software developer at a small but well-respected web company.
I’d been coding since the age of eight, so it felt very natural, and with a great team. Six years later I was a senior developer and a director of the company. But renewables were my obsession, fuelled by the years of warnings from nature and scientists, and reports like the Centre for Alternative Technology’s landmark Zero Carbon Britain report – an epic piece of collaborative research that provided the riposte to those who still minimised the capabilities of renewables. Here’s one way it could be done, they said. There will be others. But don’t say that it can’t.
Community Energy
I co-founded York Community Energy with a stalwart group of fellow technically-minded environmentalists, and among the surprisingly large Community Energy movement I felt I’d found my people.
There are hundreds of groups nationwide tackling their energy footprints at a local level and benefiting their communities in the process. If you don’t know who your local group is, look them up. Many are volunteer-run, while others are professional outfits with slick design values able to pass unnoticed amongst the proliferation of energy services companies.
In 2018, I resigned my directorship and went back to university, to study at one of the dozens of dedicated engineering courses in renewables that were now available. I just wanted to work in clean energy, but upon graduating – to my surprise and delight – I landed a job working for a community energy company.
Sharenergy
I’m now in my second role in the sector, working for an organisation called Sharenergy. Based in Shrewsbury, we are a co-operative that exists purely to help communities install renewables. We have worked with over 300 different groups across the country and raised over £30m in community share capital.
My role is to assess technical and financial feasibility, but in our sector it isn’t only about the financial value of renewables, but what social value a project can offer to a community. It is a varied role, with plenty of opportunities to get away from behind my spreadsheets and design software. I get to spend time with groups to support them in meetings with local politicians or often-sceptical business owners and visit potential generation sites. If this happens to be for a hydropower proposal located in a picturesque river valley, well, so be it.
Overcoming barriers
It’s a great job, but I don’t want to romanticise things: making community energy work these days is hard, and it’s no pleasure to tell an idealistic group that their clean power dreams are simply unfeasible.
We’re always looking for ways to overcome the many barriers, most recently launching a venture called the Big Solar Co-op, which attempts to bring an economy of scale to a lot of the inevitable admin and risks involved in setting up a community renewable scheme. It’s an experiment which we hope will unblock dozens – maybe hundreds? – of projects nationwide (and it’s looking for volunteers and supporters now!)
Joining Prospect
I joined Prospect soon after starting work in the energy sector. We need a just transition to a new energy system, and trade unions are fundamental to that process. Even while locked into struggles to preserve labour laws under vicious attack, trade unions are still able to think big – as with the International Trade Unions for Energy Democracy movement, which I see as a natural ally of the Community Energy movement.
Where other unions were calling for government action to protect jobs in the oil and gas sectors, Prospect is talking about what a just transition for the sector might look like. A just transition can’t be something done to workers, it has to be designed through participation – and trade unions are the places where we can have these conversations.
The climate crisis requires us to rebuild our relationship with energy and find ways to need less without impacting our wellbeing. Community energy and trade unions offer us a way to participate in this change – it is only becoming ever clearer that we can’t leave it up to government.
More information:
Find your local community energy group via Community Energy Scotland, Community Energy Wales/Ynni Cymunedol Cymru, Community Energy England and Community Energy Northern Ireland.
