Banter 123: 10Jun76 VIBE Virtual Power Plant, with Lisa Beaney
virtual battery network project, shared community battery system, energy constraints and fuel poverty, store excess electricity, network of home batteries, revenue from aggregated flexibility markets
Please note: during the live session, there were issues with the sound on the accompanyiing video clip. They have been resolved here.
Presentation:
You are welcome to view and/or download the above presentation (default location is /Downloads). A markdown (text only) version is available at the bottom of this page
Meeting Summary:
Jun 10, 2026 11:51 AM London ID: 834 5460 8536
Quick recap
This meeting focused on Lisa presenting the Green Isle of Wight Community Interest Company's virtual battery network project. Lisa explained how the project aims to address energy constraints and fuel poverty on the Isle of Wight by creating a network of home batteries that work together like a shared community battery system. The project targets households, community buildings, and small businesses, particularly helping those who cannot afford solar panels or are not suitable for solar installation, such as flat residents. Lisa detailed how the system would store excess electricity when it's cheap and use it during expensive peak times, while also supporting the local grid by absorbing excess solar power and reducing strain on aging infrastructure. The presentation included an animated video demonstration, though audio issues prevented all participants from hearing it during the meeting. The project has already begun onboarding initial participants with trial batteries and is working with the Center for Energy Equality on software development and energy advice services.
Next steps
Lisa
Continue onboarding the first cohort of households and those with existing batteries, gather real-world data to complete financial modeling for the virtual battery network project.
Work with the Center for Energy Equality to implement the Fairer Warmth platform and integrate energy advice for participating households.
Collaborate with the Portsmouth consortium and Warm Homes local grant team to ensure grant-funded battery recipients are informed about the project and given the opportunity to join.
Plan and execute the first stage of the community share raise to fund community batteries in local venues (e.g., cricket club, community hall).
Post the link to the project animation/video in the meeting chat and/or on the website for attendees to review.
Collaboration
All attendees (especially those with relevant experience): Respond to the current government call for evidence on the case for community batteries, referencing the Isle of Wight project as a case study.
Summary
Virtual Battery Network Project Presentation
Lisa presented on the virtual battery network project being developed by Green Isle of Wight Community Interest Company. She explained that the Isle of Wight has significant energy efficiency challenges, with 13.13% fuel poverty rate compared to 9.65% average for the South of England, and an aging population with 35% of adults over 65. The project aims to create a community-owned solution that will help households save money on electricity, particularly those who need it most, while keeping locally produced solar power on the island rather than exporting it to the mainland.
Community Battery Network Project
Lisa presented a project to create a network of home batteries that would work together like a shared community battery system for the island, which has limited power connections to the mainland. The project aims to help people afford to heat their homes properly by storing excess electricity when it's cheap and using it when electricity is expensive, particularly benefiting those who cannot afford solar panels or batteries. The system would include three cohorts: households, community buildings, and small businesses, with support provided for non-tech-savvy participants and surplus benefits going to community projects.
Community Battery Project Presentation
Lisa presented a community battery project on the Isle of Wight that is currently onboarding its first participants with trial batteries. The project aims to help people maximize the benefits of existing batteries and eventually expand to homes without solar capacity, particularly flats that cannot install solar panels. Lisa explained that the project will use revenue from aggregated flexibility markets to fund community batteries at local venues like cricket clubs and community halls, with plans to raise additional capital through community share raises. The project targets properties not connected to mains gas, particularly those using oil heating, and requires smart meters for metering and data collection.
Chat:
00:11:13 Matt Whitehead: Having some problems here. Will close and try again 00:18:40 Alison Bruce: I suddenly have a huge echo...… 00:32:22 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: There are now schemes where people can have energy tech installed without paying up fromt.
00:33:42 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Octopus Energy launches ‘buy now, pay later’ scheme for solar panels
00:34:11 Andrew Clegg, Martock, Somerset: Have you (or anyone) involved housing associations in the project
00:37:36 Dan Stone: here's the call for evidence on the case for community batteries. It's strongly aimed at seeking feedback from the community energy sector, so I'd encourage you all to respond: https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/assessing-the-case-for-community-batteries (probably telling you something you already know!).
00:38:18 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: For the video - https://www.greeniow.org.uk/power-together/
Audio-transcript:
114 00:14:06.680 --> 00:14:10.929 Lisa Beaney: If I introduce who we are and what we do.
115 00:14:11.640 --> 00:14:12.430 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Great.
116 00:14:13.350 --> 00:14:19.270 Lisa Beaney: So, the Isle of Wight is a little island about 5 miles off of the south coast.
117 00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:27.129 Lisa Beaney: And this slide shows the average energy efficiency of the properties on the island. So…
118 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:37.660 Lisa Beaney: Dark green here is good, and as you get to the more yellowy, orangey colours, it's bad, because we have very old housing stock.
119 00:14:39.890 --> 00:14:44.549 Lisa Beaney: So, Green Isle of Wight, we are a community interest company.
120 00:14:45.030 --> 00:14:52.800 Lisa Beaney: We've… we're set up to run local projects that cut carbon and improve daily life. So.
121 00:14:52.930 --> 00:14:59.329 Lisa Beaney: Our, kind of, key tagline is helping people make their homes warmer and cheaper to heat.
122 00:14:59.900 --> 00:15:06.879 Lisa Beaney: So, last year, we had over 4,500 people attend our outreach sessions on the island.
123 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:17.299 Lisa Beaney: We provided individual, personalised advice to over 700 households, and a large proportion of these were through home visits to people.
124 00:15:17.540 --> 00:15:22.340 Lisa Beaney: And about half of them, we actually installed easy energy-saving.
125 00:15:22.450 --> 00:15:29.409 Lisa Beaney: Things like changing out old light bulbs for new light bulbs, bidding, draft, proofing measures.
126 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.590 Lisa Beaney: But we've found that these are…
127 00:15:34.050 --> 00:15:40.529 Lisa Beaney: kind of one-off things. And what we want to do is lower bills over time for people.
128 00:15:41.060 --> 00:15:48.369 Lisa Beaney: So, rather than a quick fix or a sticking plaster approach that an energy voucher might be.
129 00:15:48.500 --> 00:15:57.350 Lisa Beaney: We want to make it easier for households to save money on electricity, especially those who need it most.
130 00:15:57.870 --> 00:16:05.809 Lisa Beaney: On the island, we produce a lot of solar power in the summer, so we want to keep as much of that on the island as possible.
131 00:16:06.020 --> 00:16:08.979 Lisa Beaney: And I'll come on to the reasons why in a minute.
132 00:16:09.110 --> 00:16:26.469 Lisa Beaney: but also make it a fair transition, so that it will… this project will be community-owned, and all of the benefits will be put back into the community. So, it's not just for people that can afford to buy the new tech.
133 00:16:28.010 --> 00:16:30.400 Lisa Beaney: So if we look at what the actual problem is.
134 00:16:31.890 --> 00:16:38.579 Lisa Beaney: This is a brief overview of the National Grid as it stands on the Isle of Wight.
135 00:16:38.850 --> 00:16:45.309 Lisa Beaney: Each of those little electricity symbols shows where our primary substations are.
136 00:16:45.640 --> 00:16:51.580 Lisa Beaney: And the fact that they're all red shows that there are constraints. So we have an ageing
137 00:16:52.450 --> 00:16:55.330 Lisa Beaney: Ageing infrastructure over here.
138 00:16:57.480 --> 00:17:08.140 Lisa Beaney: You can then look at the fuel poverty over here. For south of England, it's, on average, 9.65%. On the Isle of Wight, it's 13.13.
139 00:17:08.630 --> 00:17:18.290 Lisa Beaney: But these figures don't actually give you the… the true picture. This is based on the government's method of calculating it.
140 00:17:18.530 --> 00:17:33.680 Lisa Beaney: If you take wider estimates based on 10% of household income, that puts the level of fuel poverty closer at 30%. So, the DESNES figures are based on quite a narrow definition.
141 00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:45.369 Lisa Beaney: So we also have an aging population. I think something like 35% of the adults on the island, or the population on the island, are over 65.
142 00:17:45.760 --> 00:17:49.230 Lisa Beaney: We have lower than average incomes.
143 00:17:49.740 --> 00:17:55.129 Lisa Beaney: We've recently been ranked as one of the most left-behind areas in the UK.
144 00:17:55.310 --> 00:18:05.129 Lisa Beaney: And, as that picture showed, we are an island with limited power connections. We do only have 3 cables linking us to the mainland.
145 00:18:05.130 --> 00:18:05.650 Alison Bruce: Max.
146 00:18:07.860 --> 00:18:10.310 Lisa Beaney: So what can we actually do about it?
147 00:18:10.930 --> 00:18:18.999 Lisa Beaney: So, our project is a network of home batteries that will work together like one big shared community battery.
148 00:18:19.250 --> 00:18:23.360 Lisa Beaney: So they'll be installed in multiple homes across the island.
149 00:18:23.560 --> 00:18:37.860 Lisa Beaney: will have software controlling the charging and discharging of the batteries, and they can work together like one big system. So the savings and value are actually shared locally.
150 00:18:39.230 --> 00:18:46.120 Lisa Beaney: So what I have next is a short animated video that will explain the project to you.
151 00:19:08.520 --> 00:19:12.069 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Hi, Lisa, there's no sound to the video, if it's meant to be.
152 00:19:12.800 --> 00:19:17.400 Lisa Beaney: Okay, yeah, there should be, let me… Try and work out why.
153 00:19:20.420 --> 00:19:22.030 Dan Stone: It's a common…
154 00:19:22.030 --> 00:19:23.420 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: problem with Zoom.
155 00:19:23.420 --> 00:19:30.499 Dan Stone: When you share your screen, there's normally a button that says, enable sound.
156 00:19:30.500 --> 00:19:31.320 Alison Bruce: Thanks.
157 00:19:31.320 --> 00:19:33.790 Lisa Beaney: Okay, let me have a little look.
158 00:19:35.880 --> 00:19:38.889 Lisa Beaney: I'll try stopping sharing and reshare.
159 00:19:39.260 --> 00:19:43.060 Dan Stone: Thank you.
160 00:19:44.050 --> 00:19:51.229 Alison Bruce: that, can I say that I have a huge echo here? I don't know if anyone else is having that.
161 00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:54.760 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: I'm not hearing it, absolutely.
162 00:19:54.760 --> 00:19:55.390 Dan Stone: It's something…
163 00:19:55.390 --> 00:19:58.200 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Sometimes means that one person's logged in twice, somehow.
164 00:19:58.200 --> 00:19:59.850 Dan Stone: Yes.
165 00:19:59.850 --> 00:20:01.270 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Either by the… by the.
166 00:20:01.270 --> 00:20:02.260 Dan Stone: computer.
167 00:20:02.260 --> 00:20:04.700 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: And their, mobile phone.
168 00:20:06.980 --> 00:20:09.520 Dan Stone: I hope so.
169 00:20:09.520 --> 00:20:13.150 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Dan, can you re-mute yourself, please? Because a lot of.
170 00:20:13.150 --> 00:20:13.990 Dan Stone: Sure, I'm sorry.
171 00:20:15.620 --> 00:20:21.339 Lisa Beaney: Okay, if I try this again… Can everyone hear that?
172 00:20:21.570 --> 00:20:22.750 Alison Bruce: No. No.
173 00:20:22.750 --> 00:20:23.450 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Leno.
174 00:20:24.500 --> 00:20:26.100 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: I do like the pictures, mate, but…
175 00:20:26.100 --> 00:20:31.519 Lisa Beaney: Okay, I'll let it run without the sound, and we have it on our website, so you'll be able to.
176 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:32.280 Alison Bruce: Yeah, true.
177 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:33.460 Lisa Beaney: look at.
178 00:20:34.360 --> 00:20:36.439 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Good. So I'm getting an echo now.
179 00:20:37.430 --> 00:20:42.950 Lisa Beaney: Yeah, I'll stop sharing. I think that's me sharing my… Microphone, or trying to.
180 00:20:42.950 --> 00:20:43.350 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Thank you.
181 00:20:43.350 --> 00:20:45.979 Lisa Beaney: sound, so I'll stop sharing and…
182 00:20:46.170 --> 00:20:48.630 Lisa Beaney: Take off that share sound option.
183 00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:52.940 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Okay. Well, if you put the link in the chat in due course, Lisa, then people…
184 00:20:52.940 --> 00:20:53.469 Lisa Beaney: Will do.
185 00:20:59.830 --> 00:21:00.649 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: You're still sharing.
186 00:21:00.650 --> 00:21:01.610 Alison Bruce: Still sharing, still sharing.
187 00:21:01.610 --> 00:21:02.010 Lisa Beaney: Yeah.
188 00:21:02.010 --> 00:21:03.719 Alison Bruce: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
189 00:21:05.740 --> 00:21:08.990 Garry Ford - Corsham Town Council: Could you mute, please? Because it might be you that's causing the echo.
190 00:21:12.680 --> 00:21:14.130 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Testing? Testing.
191 00:21:14.960 --> 00:21:17.170 Lisa Beaney: Okay, can everyone still hear me?
192 00:21:17.170 --> 00:21:17.750 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Yep.
193 00:21:17.750 --> 00:21:19.319 Mike PLUMMER: Yes, beautifully.
194 00:21:19.780 --> 00:21:32.940 Lisa Beaney: Okay, so I'll pop the link to our website in the chat at the end, so you can go on and have a look at the animation. But what it does, it allows us to store excess electricity
195 00:21:34.340 --> 00:21:42.080 Lisa Beaney: fits… Available when it's cheap, so that it can be used when electricity is expensive.
196 00:21:42.710 --> 00:21:50.230 Lisa Beaney: And it's aimed at people that wouldn't typically be able to afford batteries and solar.
197 00:21:50.710 --> 00:21:51.690 Lisa Beaney: And…
198 00:21:52.440 --> 00:22:09.770 Lisa Beaney: people that might not have properties that are suitable for solar. So, with the house batteries, we can install them for people that have flats, as well as people that have houses. So, typically, they are people that wouldn't be able to benefit from a lot of the other schemes.
199 00:22:10.210 --> 00:22:11.110 Lisa Beaney: So…
200 00:22:12.080 --> 00:22:21.700 Lisa Beaney: It helps people lower their bills. By helping people lower their bills, it means that they can afford to heat their homes properly.
201 00:22:22.630 --> 00:22:29.420 Lisa Beaney: Because one thing we notice when we do a lot of our home visits is that people just cannot afford to put the heating on.
202 00:22:29.670 --> 00:22:38.139 Lisa Beaney: So, if we can save people money in one area, they can use it to help heat their homes during the winter.
203 00:22:38.440 --> 00:22:55.340 Lisa Beaney: And then any surplus benefits are put into community projects, so various energy advice, upgrade… home upgrades for people, and future projects, funding more batteries so that more people can take part.
204 00:23:00.730 --> 00:23:09.060 Lisa Beaney: So, we've got 3 different cohorts of people that can take part. We've got households, So, people…
205 00:23:09.430 --> 00:23:17.460 Lisa Beaney: can have home batteries, and it's quite a, I'd say, a supported process, because a lot of the
206 00:23:17.710 --> 00:23:25.589 Lisa Beaney: the people on the island here aren't necessarily tech-savvy, and maybe I don't think it's just on the island, I think
207 00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:36.520 Lisa Beaney: we… Or rather, Government quite often assume that if you put something online, it makes it accessible to everyone.
208 00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:41.720 Lisa Beaney: But the reality we've found is that it doesn't. And…
209 00:23:42.280 --> 00:23:58.830 Lisa Beaney: there's… we've got the Warm Homes grant local funding that can fund some batteries for people, and it's no good just installing a battery for somebody and expecting them to know how to operate it, how to make the most out of it.
210 00:23:59.520 --> 00:24:05.970 Lisa Beaney: we have to help people do that, so that's what this project is. It allows people to
211 00:24:07.660 --> 00:24:16.219 Lisa Beaney: To get the financial rewards that they should from having the battery, that they won't necessarily if they're just left to their own devices.
212 00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:22.380 Lisa Beaney: We're looking at funding batteries in community buildings.
213 00:24:22.520 --> 00:24:28.879 Lisa Beaney: So, a large battery in a cricket club or a community hall, we can then
214 00:24:29.360 --> 00:24:36.279 Lisa Beaney: get benefit from that, and I'll go on in a minute and show you how the revenue stack for this works out.
215 00:24:36.410 --> 00:24:47.399 Lisa Beaney: But that battery in that community building can help spread those benefits locally to other people that, for one reason or another, may not be able to take part in the project.
216 00:24:47.600 --> 00:24:56.440 Lisa Beaney: And some small businesses can also join our project. So, we're finding businesses that could benefit
217 00:24:56.850 --> 00:25:08.810 Lisa Beaney: By having a battery. And a lot of businesses on the island are kind of owner-occupier businesses, where it's a very small business run by one or two people.
218 00:25:09.150 --> 00:25:10.120 Lisa Beaney: And…
219 00:25:10.410 --> 00:25:23.640 Lisa Beaney: like a lot of businesses across the island, they're also struggling. So, if we help businesses as well, we help them stay profitable, which means they actually stay in business.
220 00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:33.629 Lisa Beaney: Which helps with employment on the island, which again means people have more money to spend and can afford to pay their energy bills and heat their homes.
221 00:25:36.130 --> 00:25:47.500 Lisa Beaney: So, we look at it as various building blocks for our income. So, the first one, which is just using electricity when it's cheap.
222 00:25:48.520 --> 00:26:02.730 Lisa Beaney: sorry, charging when it's cheap, and using electricity when it's more expensive. So typically, we've seen this with tariffs like the Old Economy 7 tariff overnight, but now we're getting a lot more
223 00:26:03.310 --> 00:26:17.630 Lisa Beaney: interactive tariffs, where the energy price will change on a half-hourly basis, and we can trigger all of the batteries to charge or discharge based on the… either the
224 00:26:17.740 --> 00:26:24.939 Lisa Beaney: Cost of energy that we're buying, or the amount that we would be paid for putting that energy back to the grid.
225 00:26:26.100 --> 00:26:30.640 Lisa Beaney: And then, at a national level, by having these
226 00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:38.059 Lisa Beaney: batteries that can operate like one big battery, sometimes the national grid just needs
227 00:26:38.800 --> 00:26:46.629 Lisa Beaney: A bit of help, or it could be 5 or 10 seconds to balance a particular issue on the system.
228 00:26:47.110 --> 00:26:54.079 Lisa Beaney: So, having that… capacity available, there is a financial benefit for that.
229 00:26:54.420 --> 00:26:55.630 Lisa Beaney: And then…
230 00:26:55.670 --> 00:27:04.949 Lisa Beaney: supporting our local network, so as we say here, soaking up extra solar, because the solar capacity for the island
231 00:27:04.950 --> 00:27:17.210 Lisa Beaney: is about half of its total winter usage. So, in the summer, we're reliant on those cables back to the mainland to export all of that electricity back.
232 00:27:17.470 --> 00:27:22.910 Lisa Beaney: Now, if… Those cables look like they're going to become overloaded.
233 00:27:23.910 --> 00:27:27.270 Lisa Beaney: The local network operator will
234 00:27:27.480 --> 00:27:37.849 Lisa Beaney: turn off, effectively, some of the solar farms, though they won't be able to export their electricity. So if we can trigger our batteries to soak that up.
235 00:27:38.130 --> 00:27:41.660 Lisa Beaney: Then, that means that energy isn't wasted.
236 00:27:42.530 --> 00:27:54.539 Lisa Beaney: And we're also talking to SSEN about looking at the loading on the secondary substations, because on the island, most of them don't have any monitoring on them.
237 00:27:54.620 --> 00:28:04.930 Lisa Beaney: So the only time that they know that they are getting near capacity and overloaded is actually when they start to overheat. So each of them has
238 00:28:05.410 --> 00:28:12.690 Lisa Beaney: Something that looks like a greenhouse thermometer there, with a maximum and a minimum value on it.
239 00:28:12.760 --> 00:28:25.809 Lisa Beaney: And it's only by somebody going and looking at that and seeing, yes, this secondary substation is getting too hot. That means the loading on it is getting too high. That's the only method they have for knowing that.
240 00:28:26.210 --> 00:28:29.800 Lisa Beaney: If we can put batteries around
241 00:28:30.020 --> 00:28:48.390 Lisa Beaney: a secondary substation that is showing problems like that. We can trigger those batteries to charge when the energy is freely available, and then discharge back into the house, and therefore reduce the load on that secondary substation during peak periods.
242 00:28:49.390 --> 00:28:52.350 Lisa Beaney: The other thing we've found is that this is a…
243 00:28:52.500 --> 00:28:58.310 Lisa Beaney: Very quick-changing industry, and that there are new opportunities
244 00:28:58.460 --> 00:29:06.900 Lisa Beaney: arising all of the time, with different markets and services opening up. So we're looking at how we can incorporate all of that.
245 00:29:09.680 --> 00:29:17.530 Lisa Beaney: So, how does it help the local grid? As I said, the solar can exceed grid capacity, and the evening demand strains the network.
246 00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:21.809 Lisa Beaney: Upgrades are very slow and very expensive.
247 00:29:22.180 --> 00:29:32.860 Lisa Beaney: And they're not a given. And SSCN are working at the moment on their plans for ED3, which is the next five-year
248 00:29:33.250 --> 00:29:36.710 Lisa Beaney: Period that will come in from 2028.
249 00:29:37.820 --> 00:29:45.940 Lisa Beaney: If there's no new subsea cable in there for the Isle of Wight, we're going to start running into a lot of constraint issues over here.
250 00:29:46.930 --> 00:29:51.470 Lisa Beaney: So, with our project, it means excess solar can be stored locally.
251 00:29:51.820 --> 00:30:03.480 Lisa Beaney: And stored energy supports peak demand. And we can reduce some of the pressures on our network without necessarily having to wait for major upgrades.
252 00:30:06.030 --> 00:30:08.259 Lisa Beaney: So why do we do all of this?
253 00:30:08.450 --> 00:30:11.440 Lisa Beaney: We're doing this for people, because
254 00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:22.959 Lisa Beaney: Whatever happens in this country, we need people to be able to afford to heat their homes properly. We need people to have affordable energy.
255 00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:26.040 Lisa Beaney: And we need this transition to be fair.
256 00:30:26.170 --> 00:30:28.049 Lisa Beaney: And at the moment, it isn't.
257 00:30:28.380 --> 00:30:43.489 Lisa Beaney: If you've got the money, and you can afford to buy all of this technology, then you can reduce your energy bill substantially. And at home, we've done this ourselves. We've got solar panels, we've got batteries, we've got heat pumps, and…
258 00:30:43.870 --> 00:30:48.549 Lisa Beaney: It has cut thousands of pounds off of our energy bill each year.
259 00:30:48.660 --> 00:30:51.370 Lisa Beaney: If you don't have that money to start with.
260 00:30:51.500 --> 00:30:56.249 Lisa Beaney: You don't have the opportunity to make those savings, and that's not fair.
261 00:30:56.550 --> 00:31:01.660 Lisa Beaney: So what we want to do is to try and even out the playing field a little bit.
262 00:31:01.810 --> 00:31:05.229 Lisa Beaney: It won't go all the way, and we can't help everyone.
263 00:31:05.410 --> 00:31:10.299 Lisa Beaney: But if we can help people like Derek here.
264 00:31:11.230 --> 00:31:23.109 Lisa Beaney: afford to be able to heat his home. He was heating it just with a log burner, because he's in an all-electric house, and couldn't afford to put the heating on during peak times.
265 00:31:23.700 --> 00:31:29.970 Lisa Beaney: We have to be able to make people's lives better, and that's what we're aiming for.
266 00:31:30.980 --> 00:31:35.390 Lisa Beaney: So, at this point, I think that is the final slide.
267 00:31:36.180 --> 00:31:38.599 Lisa Beaney: I will say, are there any questions?
268 00:31:40.770 --> 00:31:46.180 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Lisa, that's absolutely amazing, and what a revelation. I'm sure there'll be lots of questions here. We've got,
269 00:31:46.180 --> 00:31:46.880 Dan Stone: Bye.
270 00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:50.230 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Rick here from Carbon Copy, we've got Dan here from the community.
271 00:31:50.230 --> 00:31:52.099 Dan Stone: Yeah, I might.
272 00:31:52.100 --> 00:31:55.940 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Sustainable Energy, who's got his hand up first.
273 00:31:55.940 --> 00:31:56.319 Dan Stone: do it from.
274 00:31:56.320 --> 00:32:00.310 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: And, I noticed that, .
275 00:32:00.310 --> 00:32:05.860 Dan Stone: We had a discussion that the.
276 00:32:05.860 --> 00:32:09.169 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: The idea of people clubbing together in a street to have their own
277 00:32:10.380 --> 00:32:15.520 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: deals in a street-wide basis, has been an idea for a while, but has never really taken off anywhere.
278 00:32:15.520 --> 00:32:16.020 Dan Stone: happened.
279 00:32:16.020 --> 00:32:17.100 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: This is something that's.
280 00:32:17.100 --> 00:32:17.540 Dan Stone: Oh, God.
281 00:32:17.540 --> 00:32:18.800 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: It avoids all that, and it…
282 00:32:18.800 --> 00:32:19.460 Dan Stone: Yeah.
283 00:32:19.460 --> 00:32:27.870 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: the just transition of it is absolutely amazing. Thank you so much, Liz. Dan, you're first up. After Dan, I'll go to Rick after Dan, but Dan, your question's up.
284 00:32:27.870 --> 00:32:34.080 Dan Stone: Yeah, thanks. That was… that was great. What a fantastic project. I… questions I had were,
285 00:32:34.250 --> 00:32:52.139 Dan Stone: How far has your project along? What have been the, sort of, greatest barriers for you in getting the project going? And just, if people aren't aware, there's a call for evidence on the case for community batteries that's live at the moment. I really encourage you to all respond to it. Yours sounds like a great case study.
286 00:32:52.270 --> 00:32:54.359 Dan Stone: To put forward, Lisa.
287 00:32:55.010 --> 00:33:04.790 Lisa Beaney: Thank you. At the moment, we are onboarding the first few people. We've raised some money for some trial batteries.
288 00:33:05.010 --> 00:33:09.930 Lisa Beaney: So we are opening it up to people that might already have batteries.
289 00:33:10.140 --> 00:33:13.150 Lisa Beaney: Because lots of people have gone out
290 00:33:13.270 --> 00:33:16.369 Lisa Beaney: And have them installed, but don't necessarily
291 00:33:16.520 --> 00:33:19.270 Lisa Beaney: Know how to make the most out of them.
292 00:33:19.390 --> 00:33:26.709 Lisa Beaney: That will give us… Hopefully, the data that we need to finish for financial modelling, because
293 00:33:27.100 --> 00:33:31.240 Lisa Beaney: At the moment, everything that we've done on the
294 00:33:32.100 --> 00:33:44.969 Lisa Beaney: how much income each person will save has been a numbers-based exercise. But we're now moving into the… putting it into real homes with real people.
295 00:33:45.990 --> 00:33:49.289 Lisa Beaney: And… And helping them with that.
296 00:33:51.080 --> 00:33:59.350 Lisa Beaney: The biggest obstacles Has actually been working with the district network operator.
297 00:33:59.760 --> 00:34:09.780 Lisa Beaney: And… And the… the aggregators that we need to work with to actually tie it all together.
298 00:34:10.170 --> 00:34:18.549 Lisa Beaney: We're working with the center for Energy Equality, who are writing all of the The software behind it.
299 00:34:18.710 --> 00:34:20.150 Lisa Beaney: So, it…
300 00:34:20.389 --> 00:34:31.210 Lisa Beaney: we'll be using their fairer Warmth platform as part of it, so people don't just get a battery, it will be wrapped up with a whole load of energy advice as well.
301 00:34:31.500 --> 00:34:36.160 Lisa Beaney: And we've been talking to… the consortium for…
302 00:34:36.320 --> 00:34:52.130 Lisa Beaney: from Portsmouth that covers the Isle of Wight, so the Warm Homes Local Grant to try and make sure that for every battery that is installed that is grant funded, that the people are given the information about our project.
303 00:34:52.420 --> 00:35:04.269 Lisa Beaney: So that we can help them get on to the best tariff, and also give them the opportunity to join, if they choose to, to maximize the financial benefits from their batteries.
304 00:35:07.350 --> 00:35:13.320 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Amazing. Thank you so much. Great. Rick, after Rick, we'll go to Stuart. Rick.
305 00:35:13.970 --> 00:35:18.490 Ric Casale: Thanks very much, Lisa, amazing, amazing project, amazing work.
306 00:35:18.650 --> 00:35:35.749 Ric Casale: My… sorry, it was two questions. The first was actually to understand where you were in the, the rollout, so it's obviously relatively early. And then just to clarify, in terms of the rollout, you're going after, initially, those people that already have…
307 00:35:35.870 --> 00:35:38.340 Ric Casale: The households already have,
308 00:35:39.020 --> 00:35:54.370 Ric Casale: electricity generating capacity and batteries, but you mentioned that the project is intended to help alleviate some of the fuel poverty. So you're starting with those that have, because the infrastructure's in place, and then building it out.
309 00:35:54.500 --> 00:35:55.610 Ric Casale: To the people that don't.
310 00:35:55.610 --> 00:35:56.270 Lisa Beaney: Come on.
311 00:35:56.410 --> 00:36:09.870 Lisa Beaney: Yes, and it's not just people that have energy generating capacity. The… the plan has always been to put batteries into the homes of people that don't have and can't have solar.
312 00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:15.099 Lisa Beaney: Because we have a large number of flats on the island that
313 00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:21.950 Lisa Beaney: Won't ever be able to have solar panels on the roof, but would be able to have a battery at home.
314 00:36:22.530 --> 00:36:36.199 Lisa Beaney: Then we'll be using the income from the project to fund further batteries, along with a community share raise. We've set up a community benefit society that will handle this project.
315 00:36:36.940 --> 00:36:38.480 Lisa Beaney: So that we can…
316 00:36:39.030 --> 00:36:46.980 Lisa Beaney: We can raise the capital through a community share raise, and there will most probably be 2 or 3 different stages of that.
317 00:36:47.160 --> 00:36:58.139 Lisa Beaney: There'll be one stage initially, I think, to cover some of the community batteries that we want to put in place at places like local cricket Club and a community hall.
318 00:36:58.650 --> 00:37:04.899 Lisa Beaney: Because that gives us the biggest immediate benefit. And then we use the
319 00:37:05.850 --> 00:37:14.600 Lisa Beaney: The additional income that those batteries create to fund the smaller batteries that we'll be providing for free for people.
320 00:37:15.700 --> 00:37:16.330 Ric Casale: Thank you.
321 00:37:17.160 --> 00:37:25.130 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: All your answers, Lisa, is making the whole project even more impressive, thank you. Stuart, your turn, sir.
322 00:37:25.130 --> 00:37:29.230 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I'd just like to say thank you, an amazing bit of work.
323 00:37:29.800 --> 00:37:34.699 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: I'm… I'm… Does the island have, mains gas?
324 00:37:36.390 --> 00:37:41.459 Lisa Beaney: It has some. About 40% of the island isn't connected to mains gas.
325 00:37:42.010 --> 00:37:48.510 Lisa Beaney: We still have about 2,000 properties on the island that have oil heating.
326 00:37:48.650 --> 00:37:49.360 Lisa Beaney: Yeah.
327 00:37:49.470 --> 00:37:54.319 Lisa Beaney: We have about 2,500 used bottled gas.
328 00:37:54.840 --> 00:38:05.129 Lisa Beaney: And the remainder of the off-grid properties primarily use electricity, so that's the old-style night storage heaters. We do still have
329 00:38:05.270 --> 00:38:10.579 Lisa Beaney: I think it's now down to less than 50 properties that burn coal for their heating.
330 00:38:11.380 --> 00:38:16.429 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Okay, thanks. And how does the metering actually work for the individuals?
331 00:38:17.450 --> 00:38:19.690 Lisa Beaney: People have to have a smart meter.
332 00:38:19.690 --> 00:38:20.260 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Yep.
333 00:38:20.710 --> 00:38:33.769 Lisa Beaney: And that gives us the half-hourly readings. But the batteries and inverters also monitor how much energy and when is imported and exported.
334 00:38:34.210 --> 00:38:39.399 Lisa Beaney: And it's from that that we get a lot of our data.
335 00:38:39.940 --> 00:38:41.200 Lisa Beaney: But it's…
336 00:38:43.040 --> 00:38:53.270 Lisa Beaney: It's splitting the revenue between what goes directly to the household, because our estimates show that each household should
337 00:38:53.510 --> 00:39:00.610 Lisa Beaney: Be able to get between £100 and £300 a year reduction on their energy bill through this.
338 00:39:01.020 --> 00:39:05.040 Lisa Beaney: And then the project will make most of its money from
339 00:39:05.160 --> 00:39:11.520 Lisa Beaney: The… the aggregation of the flexibility markets and the income from that.
340 00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:13.520 Andrew Maliphant, Great Collaboration, Gloucestershire: Wow.
341 00:39:15.260 --> 00:39:21.280 Cllr Stuart Withington Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Yeah, I was just given planning permission, and I hadn't heard of these before, but a roadside…
Markdown of the presentation:
Isle of Wight Social Virtual Power Plant
10th June 2026
Slide 2 – Average energy efficiency
(Graphic only – no extractable text.)
Slide 3 – Green Isle of Wight
Green Isle of Wight
A community interest company working for a greener, fairer Isle of Wight.
What we do
Run local projects that cut carbon and improve daily life.
Work with communities to design practical, affordable solutions.
Help people access advice, support, and trusted partners.
Slide 4 – Our mission
Lower bills over time
Make it easier for households to save money on electricity — especially those who need it most.
Local energy, used locally
Keep more of the Island's clean energy on the Island — storing it when there's extra, using it later.
A fairer transition
Community ownership and shared benefits — not just for people who can afford new technology.
A fair energy transition for the Isle of Wight.
Slide 5 – What's the problem?
(Title slide introducing the problem.)
Slide 6 – Grid capacity: a quick view
Screenshot of the SSEN Generation Availability / Network Capacity map.
Slide 7 – Fuel poverty: a quick snapshot
South East of England
9.65%
Isle of Wight
13.13%
Source: DESNZ Sub-regional Fuel Poverty Data
Different sources use different definitions — but the message is clear: too many households are struggling with energy costs.
Slide 8 – There are also social challenges
An ageing population
Lower than average incomes
One of the UK's most "left behind" areas
An island with limited power connections
Slide 9 – So, what is the solution?
(Title slide.)
Slide 10 – What is "Power Together"?
A network of home batteries working together like one shared community battery.
Batteries in homes
Installed in multiple homes across the Island.
Smart control
Software controls charging and discharging.
Works as one
Together they act like a much larger battery.
Benefit
Savings and value are shared locally.
Comparison
One large battery owned by a commercial company
100–200 smaller batteries hosted in homes and community buildings
Slide 11
(Graphic only.)
Slide 12 – How Power Together helps
Three simple outcomes
Lower bills
Use stored electricity during expensive periods to reduce peak-rate purchases.
Warmer homes
Cheaper energy helps households heat their homes with greater confidence.
Community benefits
Surplus income supports:
advice
home upgrades
future community projects
Slide 13 – Who can take part?
Households
Home batteries where suitable, with support to make joining easy.
Community buildings
Shared batteries helping spread benefits locally.
Small businesses
Businesses can also participate, helping the project expand and generate additional income.
Slide 14 – How the project earns income
Think of it as a stack of building blocks:
Using cheaper electricity
Charge when electricity is cheap.
Use it later when prices are higher.
Helping balance the national system
Provide rapid support when required.
Supporting the local network
Absorb surplus solar generation.
Reduce peak demand.
Future value
Take advantage of emerging flexibility markets and services.
Slide 15 – How this helps our grid
Before
Solar generation can exceed local grid capacity.
Evening demand strains the network.
Upgrades are slow and expensive.
After
Excess solar stored locally.
Stored energy supports peak demand.
Network pressure reduced without major reinforcement.
Slide 16
(Closing message slide with no extractable text.)
Slide 17
Any questions?
Last updated