Low Carbon Hub, Oxfordshire

Story of Self

I started work as a chartered surveyor in a commercial property firm. The work didn’t sit well with my values, so I left London to work with Vale Housing Association as research and communications officer and helped them become the first UK housing association to implement the ISO 14001 environmental management standard. After cycling around the world, I worked for the National Trust as environmental practice officer and then later as outreach worker for Westmill Sustainable Energy Trust.  Gradually my work moved closer to my values and my first project with Low Carbon Hub was the OxFutures project. 

The Hub grew out of West Oxford Community Renewables (WOCoRe) which piloted renewable generation assets using community share raises, based on an idea proposed by David and Barbara Hammond. Well networked local individuals helped publicise the share raises within their community and tapped into a strong desire to mitigate climate change which resulted from the impact of local flooding. The funded projects included rooftop solar and the hydro at Osney Lock, which was designed by David Hammond. The generation assets make a carbon cut themselves but also make a community benefit profit used to support further projects in the community, that themselves cut carbon. This Double Carbon Cut model invented in West Oxford was scaled up by the Low Carbon Hub.   

The Low Carbon Hub spun out of WOCoRe when Oxford City Council offered the opportunity to bid for DECC Local Carbon Frameworks Fund money.  The City was impressed by the model and wanted to see if it could be repeated and scaled up across the City and potentially the County.  WOCoRe was getting many requests from people from across Britain to understand this model, but its Board wanted to keep it focused on its local community and so they proposed setting up Low Carbon Hub instead.  Paul Robinson at Oxford City Council spotted a grant opportunity his team didn't have time to bid for, so he passed it over to Barbara Hammond to write and Oxford City Council fronted it.  Wendy Twist ran the first share raise and encouraged various high net worth individuals on board. Steve Drummond and Adriano Figueiredo, who were both volunteers at Low Carbon North Oxford at the time, created the financial business model which the Hub still runs on. 

We became a registered Community Benefit Society and two years ago we won the national Environmental Social Enterprise of the Year Award.  

Low Carbon Hub has generated over £1M of surplus from its own renewable energy projects which it has now reinvested back into the community. The money, generated from 55 renewable energy installations, has been reinvested back into the community in the form of grants to support community group members, match funding for energy programmes and grid edge research and development. This is a “second wave” of activity to the initial renewable energy production and this second wave helps to cut carbon emissions further. Ultimately it supports the transition to an equitable, zero carbon energy system that puts people at its heart. In addition to this, we’ve also attracted another £11M in grant funding into the county.  You'll find more details here https://www.lowcarbonhub.org/p/community-benefit-funding-hits-1-million/   

Story of Us 

Since its beginnings, Low Carbon Hub has been at the heart of a growing partnership of people and organisations working together for a low carbon future. Growing from just ten pioneer investors, the Low Carbon Hub now has 1,770 investor members who have collectively invested over £10 million in the Low Carbon Hub. This investment has allowed us to build 55 renewable generation installations across Oxfordshire, working with schools and businesses to tackle the global issue of climate change locally. Most recently we have completed Ray Valley Solar, the largest community-owned solar park in the UK, generating enough clean electricity to power over 6,000 homes. 

We recognise that we get more impact by working collaboratively wherever possible. Oxfutures project was a collaboration with multiple partners - academic, council and the consultancy Bioregional, which was highly successful in growing Oxfordshire’s low carbon economy.  

Our aim is to work in a way that is fair and participative - in a way that creates equity. There is a real possibility of people being excluded from green cheap energy. There are commercial consultancies that will deliver an energy assessment, but they are only interested in talking to large businesses with high consumption who can pay for this. Many of the smaller enterprises we work with cannot afford the £1,500 cost of an assessment, so Low Carbon Hub’s role is often securing funding, so we can deliver our support at zero cost to participants.  After delivering our reports, we help SMEs identify grants to install the low carbon technologies and recently sent our members information about the VCSE energy efficiency fund; one of them, Chipping Norton theatre successfully applied for £89,000 of capital funding as a result.  Magdalen Road Studios is another example of a not for profit we helped, which secured £63,000 of funding and now supports a series of art related community projects.  

Our community engagement manager Cathy Ryan has supported 46 groups in Oxfordshire. They hold regular events and activities to inspire everyone in their community to take action to reduce the effects of climate change. The surplus made by Low Carbon Hub is distributed partly through community grants to these member groups. 

In terms of partnerships we work closely with all the district councils and the County Council.  The City Council was instrumental and forward looking in helping fund us as a start-up, and provided loans to help us with cash flow during large projects, such as Ray Valley Solar. Our last major collaboration was the £42M Innovate UK partnership to deliver LEO - Local Energy Oxfordshire - with the electricity network operator SSEN and the Energy and Power Group at Oxford University.  Oxford Brookes Environmental Information Exchange provides all our non-domestic building assessment expertise.  

Story of Now: Calls to action

Support for small businesses

SME businesses make up a large part of our national and local economy: there are 288,000 homes and only 18,400 business premises in Oxfordshire, but their energy consumption is equal. We need a legislative stick to get businesses to concentrate on decarbonising along with grants or cheap loans to implement the changes needed.  

Local authority Energy Plans

Our local authorities and network operators are planning for the transition to net zero energy at a regional level. The role of local authorities to develop Local Area Energy Plans needs to be mandated and funded accordingly to ensure they are properly resourced.  

Information about new technologies

The transition to a net zero energy system will rely on our success in adopting electric vehicles and heat pumps in our homes and businesses i.e. at the ends of the electricity network, where the wires come into our buildings: we call this “the grid edge”. Many decisions by individual households and businesses about technologies that are new to them will have to be made: we will all need information and support as we navigate these choices.  

Local Grid Edge coordinators

Local authorities and community energy organisations must be supported to develop replicable and scalable models for providing neighbourhood-level coordination around the energy transition that is joined up with strategic and regional level planning.