Banter 29: Younity and Community Energy, 24Jul24, Michaela Cryar

Michaela shows us how Younity exists to energise community energy by connecting groups to the energy market, volunteers and funding

Video Timeline (min:sec):

00:00 - 00:52 Introduction

00:52 - 24:29 Michaela's Presentation about Younity

24:26 - 58:36 (end) Q&A session

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Presentation:

2MB

Younity Great Collaboration Session.pdf

pdf

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Chat text:

00:49:18 Cara Naden: https://www.younity.coop/community-power-tariff

00:55:12 John Payne: What is your take on Community Resilience, for example local power networks and battery storage for example a rural community like us in the Forest of Dean. We do have outages.

00:58:57 John Payne: I think I am asking about decentralising energy networks. Interestingly I obtain the majority of my power from biomass at home

01:03:11 Amanda Davis: Couple of points in the "no silly questions" category:

1. All cooperatives are bound by their 7 cooperative principles to cooperate with each other

2. Coop party is linked with Labour party, such that coop MPs are Coop Labour MPs, hence Coop MPs are in the government ie in power! (groan) 🤣

01:04:19 Cara Naden: Meant to also ask if linking with Centre for Sustainable Energy to support community engagement and setting up community energy groups - they have a great Energy Local tool kit for supporting community lead community energy planning.

01:13:31 John Payne: Most of the transmission losses occur in the local grids not in the HV lines Local grids that use the mass of say the storage potential in a community of local EVs could be a game changer

01:26:55 Cara Naden: Can we have your email please Michaela?

01:27:09 Michaela Cryar: [e-mail]

01:27:13 Jacky Lawrence: thank you

01:27:14 Cara Naden: Reacted to "[e-mail]..." with 👍

01:27:26 Adam Birchweaver: Thanks!

01:27:31 Mike E - Hay Resilience: and yours Cara?

01:28:08 Cara Naden: Replying to "and yours Cara?"

[e-mail] or [e-mail]

01:28:36 Andrew Broadbent: Very interesting presentation and discussion, thank you very much.

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AI search text:

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Andrew Maliphant: Welcome, Andrew.

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Andrew Broadbent: Hi, there! Can you hear me? Okay.

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Andrew Maliphant: Yes, yes.

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Andrew Maliphant: just waiting for our speaker to join us.

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Andrew Maliphant: She is,

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Andrew Maliphant: send it the link yesterday and send it again.

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Andrew Maliphant: Hi! Good morning, everybody. We're just waiting for our speaker to join us.

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Andrew Maliphant: No, here she comes!

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Andrew Maliphant: Hi, Mika! Very welcome.

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Michaela Cryar: Hi! How are you?

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Andrew Maliphant: So far so good.

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Andrew Maliphant: That seems to be my standard answer these days. I don't know what your life is like. My impression is that

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Andrew Maliphant: all of us involved in climate change, different ways. The other are are up to here with things that we're doing, and more things that people want us to do so. I think we're all in the same boat on this one, I see nods around the room. Yes, indeed.

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Andrew Maliphant: I'm hoping we've I know you'll have a very attentive audience today. It may be that our the holiday time may have diminished our attendance, but we will wait. We will see. We'll give a couple more minutes to

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Andrew Maliphant: join in. I mean, it's

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Andrew Maliphant: I'm all from Essex going in and so forth.

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Andrew Maliphant: I believe you'll be able to share your do you? Would you have a presentation, Nicole? I believe you'd be able.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah, so yeah, I'll share my screen.

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Andrew Maliphant: If I, if I give you a brief introduction from your website, shall I? And then.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah, of course, that'd be great.

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Andrew Maliphant: Then. we will. We can take it from there.

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Andrew Maliphant: And

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Andrew Maliphant: I'd

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Andrew Maliphant: 9 k

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Andrew Maliphant: a couple more minutes

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Andrew Maliphant: when I 1st started doing presentations online. I I waited too long for one particular to start one particular session, then, of course, realized that some people had actually timed their

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Andrew Maliphant: their diaries to the hour and it was no point starting 10 min late, because they'd they'd miss the last 10 min.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah.

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Andrew Maliphant: So. We know where we are.

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Andrew Maliphant: the other. The other. The other theory I have is that once you start up, start a meeting the latecomers arrive. So there we are.

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Andrew Maliphant: There we go.

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Andrew Maliphant: Okay.

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Andrew Maliphant: Oh, yes, oh, they're all logic there. They must have heard me

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Andrew Maliphant: there.

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Andrew Maliphant: Oh, yes.

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Andrew Maliphant: and rushing in.

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Andrew Maliphant: Hi! Amanda!

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Amanda Davis: Hello! Hi! Karen!

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Michaela Cryar: My birth, now.

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Andrew Maliphant: Hi, John! Hi! Gary! How are everybody?

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Andrew Maliphant: Okie Dokey? Right.

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Amanda Davis: Andrew, just for information. I did have to come in using the 31st again.

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Andrew Maliphant: Yes, I had to look at the the login thing. I managed to get into Graham's zoom account with a bit of help from him, just some help from him. And I couldn't readily see what the issue is, and I was we're wary of doing something which was in migrants will actually cancel the whole deal. So we, at least it is working, and we will, we will fine tune it on his return. So there we go.

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Andrew Maliphant: welcome, everybody. Just to this session we we do record these sessions. So what we usually say is that if you

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Andrew Maliphant: then the recordings put on Youtube. If you if you don't want your front room to be shown on on national media, please feel able to close the off your video.

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Andrew Maliphant: I'm going to introduce to our speakers today as Mikaela Kryer. Mchryla is the director of Unity. Unity is born from a partnership between your crop, energy and octopus energy, and is very much about seeking to make community energy to its rightful place at the heart of sustainable power

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Andrew Maliphant: supporting other countries, community energy projects in lots of different ways.

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Andrew Maliphant: I won't say any more about that, because I'm sure you and Mikaela will be able to describe it and expand much better than I can. So, Mikaela, the floor is yours.

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Michaela Cryar: Thank you very much. Thank you for the lovely instruction. So I'll just share my screen.

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Michaela Cryar: Call that holiday

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Michaela Cryar: so hopefully

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Michaela Cryar: everyone could see my screen.

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Andrew Maliphant: Yep.

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Michaela Cryar: Thank you. Well, yeah, thank you so much for the invitation to join with you all today. Very much. Appreciate it and thank you for Amanda for facilitating and 1st creating the introduction. So for context as a Andrew mentioned. Yeah. My name is Michaela. I've worked at Unity for 3 years, and prior to that I spent my whole career in the energy sector the last 15 years on the consultant

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Michaela Cryar: side working for some energy and global majors as well. So I'm very fortunate to have found the wonderful world of community energy. So

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Michaela Cryar: unity is a joint venture. So it's half phone by octopus energy, and it's half by mid counties. Cooperative. Amanda is with the board members of mid counties cooperative. Hence, hence the link there. So we're very fortunate because we still get, you know, the very much the links into the cooperative world, the ethics and values of a cooperative and many community energy groups are no corpse community benefit societies, except

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Michaela Cryar: so it's great to have that connection. And then, having the other partner. Octopus octopus, have just grown

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Michaela Cryar: by an insane amount, really, over the past 8 years. So it's great to be part of their growth, their tech, their voice. And to really kind of champion community within that.

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Michaela Cryar: So yeah, the partnership works very well. And we're also proud supporters of community England. We've been supportive of them for a number of years. So today, I'm just gonna talk through community energy, probably as if none of you have heard of it before. So apologies, if any things that you already know but I thought, be good to just start from, scratch a little bit about what we do, our hopes and aspirations. The presentation definitely will not last an hour, but be good to have some questions, thoughts, conversations, as well at the end. If that suits all.

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Michaela Cryar: So I'll just jump straight in. So community energy. For those that may or not know it's been a renewable energy asset is owned by community is owned by people in ideally, in the local area.

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Michaela Cryar: for the community. So it's it's typically a group of people may get together and say, Hang on! Why isn't that field got a wind turbine? Why isn't that rooftop got a solo array? And then, rather waiting for a private company or developer to do something. It's that taking local action. It's very empowering. You know, big groups people get together. They'll do the site surveys, and then, when it comes to actually financing

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Michaela Cryar: when you need to pay for your solar panels, when you need to pay for wind turbines, or whatever that group will do a community share, raise and lots of platforms and successes of of how groups have raised that finance. But typically, you know, in in the community, someone might invest 200 pounds. They'll get a return on investment, and how that community group

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Michaela Cryar: generates their revenue is the electricity that's generated from that renewable asset. Whether that's sold to the Grids.

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Michaela Cryar: That revenue will go back to the community energy group, any revenue that will need to go back to the investors as a return on investment, or crucially any surplus rather than again, it going to a private shareholder. It goes back to that community so that community energy group will have a board of directors. And they'll say, actually, in our area, we really want to focus on decarbonization. So that's where we're going to put the money, or we want to focus on climate education or our areas got high levels of fuel poverty or whatever. So it's a very.

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Michaela Cryar: you know, great on the ground grassroots action. And we've seen the success of

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Michaela Cryar: you know, we we work with many local community energy groups. But then on the flip side I don't know if many of you have seen like ripple energy ripple are, you know, a net, a nationwide kind of a community owned asset. It's not based on a locality, but they're doing community energy in a slightly different way and having great success. So it's great to see the varying scales. There's no part of fast forward how one group should do things. But

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Michaela Cryar: the area is always ideally get as much renewable generation as you can in that area that's owned by the people full of people. I'm going to share with you if it's okay, a quick one and a half minute. Video, Patagonia, they're the outdoor clothing brand. They're very ethical. They've sold their company to charitable trust. I'm sure many of you have heard of them. But they did a campaign a couple of years ago about community energy. So they did a wonderful

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Michaela Cryar: video. This is just a trailer. But I think it really kind of sets the tone of why community energy is so powerful. And if you do like the video, you can watch the full 40 min video on Youtube, if that's of interest. So please shout if you can't hear. But you can't say subtitles.

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Andrew Maliphant: I'm not hearing any sound.

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Michaela Cryar: Enough.

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Michaela Cryar: No, okay.

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Michaela Cryar: Videos are always a gamble. So I was just gonna skip.

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Michaela Cryar: But I'll send you the link after not sure that. Why, that hasn't worked.

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Andrew Maliphant: Many thanks.

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Michaela Cryar: Sorry this is gonna

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Michaela Cryar: there we go, perfect, right moving on. So just bit of context about who we are, our team. So

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Michaela Cryar: within the team itself within unity. You've got myself, and we've got Connie. Connie looks after the community groups, and this is ones that need contracts. So

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Michaela Cryar: I'll go into it in a second. But we buy the power that community energy groups generate. So Connie is the lead of that managing that portfolio. And Connie's also founded her own community group in her area called Croydon Community energy. Then we've got Amelia who manages kind of engagement, outreach with communities. We've got a volunteering platform which I'll talk about. So she leads on that. And she's a wonderful climate activist. And this is so much in a personal

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Michaela Cryar: personal capacity. It's very inspiring. And you and Corey is is very new to our team. He's come from the octopus side of things, and he's doing the tremendous job in on the social media trying to raise the profile of community energy and reach new audiences. But I thought it'd be helpful for context to share Unity's board of directors, so we report

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Michaela Cryar: every quarter into a board of directors. So on the mid counties side, we've got Pete Westall, who's on the exec board at mid counties. Cooperative. Lizzie used to work at Mcdonald's a number of years ago, but's got a lot of energy experience. So she decided to stay on the board, and we work very closely with sanctuary housing as well, which is great. But at Octopus I've got Theresa North Bond on the board she reports directly into Greg Jackson and CEO of the kind of generation side of things.

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Michaela Cryar: It's great to have this sort of level of kind of

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Michaela Cryar: people and visibility on what we're doing at community energy and what we're trying to drive forward. And Matt Benny is the global energy markets director octopus as well. So just to let you know the context of where we sit within the counties and octopus families, because there's many different kind of trading units, etc. So hopefully, that's helpful.

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Michaela Cryar: So I'm just gonna share a bit about what we do as a kind of our our bread and butter. So when we were established. Originally, given the connection with octopus etc, it was decided that how we could best support community energy groups would actually just be a route to market

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Michaela Cryar: because some of these groups really struggle to sell their energy, especially, you know, if it's a large ground Mount Solar, then you can have a lot of suppliers knocking on the door. Very happy to to buy that power.

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Michaela Cryar: If you're you've got a small amount of solo on a school roof, and you know you only export a little bit in the 6 week holiday. Then that's much harder to get an agreement, because the volumes are are very small. So with with unity what we offer, regardless of the size. If it's community owned, we will always buy the power that's generated

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Michaela Cryar: and that really helps with financial viability. And something that we are very passionate about. And we're also very transparent. So you know, a couple of years ago the market went crazy high. The energy crisis, which is bad, for you know, the average consumer and industry. But for renewable generation it was fantastic. So some of the community groups were able to get, you know, over 500 pound a megal hour, which was.

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Michaela Cryar: you know, absolutely wonderful. So when the market is volatile, we are able to support the community that we work with. So through the power purchase agreement, through buying the power we work with over 260 projects across the Uk, which equates to about a 3rd of the sector. So that means, you know, we get to listen to

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Michaela Cryar: groups at various stages of the life cycle of experience. Some have got just starting out, so we've got one project, some I've got 30

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Michaela Cryar: and so it's it creates a wonderful position for us to really hear what's going on, and see how we can help and drive change forward. So this map here is a map of some of the projects that we work with. So the the yellowy orange is solar, and, as you can see, there's a lot more in the south as as you would imagine. The blue squiggle that's hydro so again, obviously, Scotland Lake district. Wales has got a lot of hydro on there and then onshore wind.

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Michaela Cryar: It's scattered around the country, obviously quite a bit more in Scotland. But we're really hoping I don't know if you guys have. You probably have seen given your interest. But labor of just lifted the effective ban on shore wind. So that's very exciting for the community energy space. So over on this pie chart we've got, you know what it break the breakdown of our portfolio by generation. So

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Michaela Cryar: this isn't by capacity. So we've got. We've only got 26 bin projects. But if by volume the wind would be a much higher proportion, rooftop solar is 56%. But in terms of volume that is naturally very small because you want rooftop solid to be used on site

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Michaela Cryar: so the 26, you know, on site winds that we work on shore. Wind projects that we work with. You know, we haven't really seen any new ones coming to fruition so very excited for the sector to hopefully see some more onshore wind. And obviously there's a number of problems within

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Michaela Cryar: the Uk renewable sector like Grid, etc. But yeah, it feels like there's some change coming. So that's been a context of

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Michaela Cryar: the core activity of what we do and how we try and help the sector.

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Michaela Cryar: and again from from listening to to groups. And what the challenges. One big challenge that is is very prevalent across the sector is it's a volunteer led sector. It's 70% volunteer led. So as you can imagine, time and capacity is a real bottleneck

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Michaela Cryar: and the the challenge we see as well, you know, at Unity we do try and raise a profile of community energy. So we'll go to. We get speaker panels and events things like that. So people might say, Oh, brilliant! How do I get involved in community energy?

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Michaela Cryar: And you know you could then go and Google and find, and a nearby group. But that group.

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Michaela Cryar: you know, you might email them and never hear back, because they might have done a project 10 years ago, which is great, but they they may not have

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Michaela Cryar: any interest in expanding or doing new projects. So it's, how do we capture some of the interest to make sure that they can add value to the sector. And you know, if they're happy to email 1 5 miles down the road, it could be a very different story and groups that we've also spoken to us very much. Say we would love more resource, but we're worried about hand holding haven't got the time to do it. So we launched a platform called Community Energy Connect. And that's just a little snapshot of it on the laptop.

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Michaela Cryar: And the idea is, groups go on. And they say, we're looking for a bit of legal help, or we're looking for a bit of social media help.

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Michaela Cryar: And on the Flip side

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Michaela Cryar: volunteers. Professional people can go on and say, I've got 2 HA month, and this is my skill set.

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Michaela Cryar: and we're hoping that will capture the interests and and and utilize it. We're

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Michaela Cryar: we're in process of upgrading the platform because we did bit of a test phase. We've had close to 200 people sign up, which is great. But in the coming months our big focus is we've done it a little bit already, you know, many organizations, big big ones have got like volunteering days that can use volunteering hours. Some of these organizations are very interested in. Actually, could we use some of our staff and put

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Michaela Cryar: they're volunteering hours towards community energy. So we're doing quite a lot of lunch and learns at kind of some of the the big corporates that's gonna be a big focus, the the latter half of this year. So if anyone's interested in having a little look at, connect or joining it, whatever. If you go on our website, unity.coop slash, take action, you can have a little sign up and Browser, if that's of interest.

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Michaela Cryar: Other things that we do? Again

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Michaela Cryar: we try and say, Well, what are the challenges of sector, and how can we help? So one of the challenges that kept coming up was access to affordable finance. So share A's can take, you know.

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Michaela Cryar: typically kind of a few months. But at the moment we know, groups are struggling to do the share raises because of the Bank of England interest rates and people just wanna put it into savings account. So is a bit tougher out there raising raising

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Michaela Cryar: the the cash within the community. So we've got a short term loan facility. It's called our kick. Start loan and we typically lend out to groups to 6, 9 months. And the idea is when they need to start a project, they need to pay the deposits for solar panels, wind turbines, or whatever they can use this loan to get the project going, and then do the

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Michaela Cryar: the the share, raise at the same time. So the project doesn't store. So we've got yeah, 1.5 million available is a revolving funds. If one group took the 1.5 million. We need to wait for them to pay back, and but that 1.5 is very kindly come from

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Michaela Cryar: half of it's come from a county co-OP, and half of it has come from octopus. So last year we lent out a million pound Bristol energy co-OP. They installed the largest community rooftop solar array in the Uk. It was a 1 megawatt installation. So that really help that project move forward. So we've got a few applicants at the moment that we're viewing for this year. So hopefully. We'll have some. We'll be supporting some new projects. In the coming months, which will be able to share

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Michaela Cryar: and then with with community energy. Obviously, you know, renewable generation is one aspect. But the social impact side is really important and kind of, you know.

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Michaela Cryar: sends it apart from, you know, a private development. So since inception, we've launched some grant funding. So

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Michaela Cryar: our latest round of recipients. So we've we've distributed 65 k to over 20 groups. Since this ransom started. And it's really focused on how can we help groups. It's small amounts of cash, you know, supplier K, 3 k. Here and there. But it's to really help the groups with their kind of

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Michaela Cryar: the grassroots local impact. So this is our latest round. So we distributed this. I think actually.

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Michaela Cryar: this week, these are the winners. We had about 20 applicants. We've got an independent judging panel they look through. So just to give you a bit of flavor of what the groups do, and you know what they use the money for so North Kensington community energy they've done some really great workshops, educational ones called voyage to repower, and that's the idea is to help young people develop skills for for green jobs. And you know, a couple of K from us has really helped kind of, you know.

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Michaela Cryar: Get that off the ground. They are developing a share, a sharing shed. So you know, I guess with the environmental work that you guys are also interested in, you've probably seen a number of these things, but this is also what you know. Some of the community energy groups do. Energy garden is a fantastic community group in London. And they're really interesting because they

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Michaela Cryar: have worked closely with like transport for London. And they tried to put solar panels around some of the overground stations and some of the depots, and then they also try and transform some of the overground stations by creating an actual garden. They'll grow hops, and, you know, pro produce for the local area. And then I get lots of

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Michaela Cryar: younger people and on the ground kind of volunteers. So that's it's very impactful program. So they've got a wonderful youth training program. So the our grant is is contributed towards that. And last, for lastly, we've got Ali and they are delivering some workshops on some of the basic topics like digital literacy. Household repairs cause they work in some of the kind of

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Michaela Cryar: more and socially, economically deprived areas in Wales. So that's very positively received. So that's just a bit of flavor of some of the as well as the generation size and the social impact work.

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Michaela Cryar: And something. Actually, I should have mentioned slightly earlier. I need to add a slide on it. The the power that we buy

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Michaela Cryar: from these community energy groups. We do ring fence that energy and it is put into a community power tariff. So it's called your carp energy. And if a domestic customer wanted to go onto a tariff that's 100 backed by community own renewables, that's the only tariff in the UK. So that's called the Community Power Tariff. So originally the Parent Communities Fund was every person that signed up to that tariff. We put 10 pounds aside, and that contributed towards this grant funding.

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Michaela Cryar: So that's that's that's definitely worth noting.

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Michaela Cryar: So as mentioned, we really do try and look at. Okay, what are the challenges in sector? And how can we help? So on on this table here, we've got existing community energy group. So the challenges here. Capacity, assistance to recruit volunteers, early stage funding community, England, Scotland, and Wales. They they do a big state of the sector report that's actually just been released. Last week.

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Michaela Cryar: but from the from the previous one they created a bit of a pie chart. What are the real kind of challenges, blockers, community groups. So time and capacity volunteers, early stage funding. These were the key kind of blockers, and there were challenges that we were also seeing as well. So what we've tried to do is say, how can we help? What can we do so? Time and capacity volunteers? That's why we've launched connect early stage funding. You know. We've got our Grant facility better loan rates. We've got our Kickstar

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Michaela Cryar: fund and expert support and guidance models. That's where our power purchase agreements come in. But we thought, we, actually, this is this is great, and these are the challenges for an existing community energy group. But we've actually now,

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Michaela Cryar: decided on, there's another challenge that we need to really focus on. And it's actually the concept and vision. If you don't know community exists.

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Michaela Cryar: then that's the ultimate barrier, then, you know, and if it's not prevalent in your community, then the barriers of kind of funding, etc, are kind of not applicable. How can we help some of these areas actually don't have community energy and really need it? And I think

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Michaela Cryar: you labors. Local power plan. Community energy is heavily focused in that. And within that there's a lot of talk of great sums of of many been put towards community energy. Which is absolutely fantastic, commute music to our ears. That being said, there's areas within the Uk which have got very strong community presence, which is wonderful, like.

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Michaela Cryar: you know. As you'd imagine, Bristol, Brighton. London's got over 30 groups. So those groups have got the pipelines. They'll be able to kind of hopefully jump on that cash, take it, and and and really make great progress. Those areas that don't have community energy. The gap might widen. So we've kind of stepped in and said, actually, what what can we do? We certainly don't have all the answers, but you know, when we look at our map of of where groups are, there's a lot of prevalence. Within the kind of rural South which is brilliant. But when we look at

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Michaela Cryar: you know, big population areas like Birmingham, their surrounding conurbations of like Walsall, Wolverhampton. There's a couple of small groups, but there's not as much as there should be. And when you look at kind of the highest levels of fuel poverty, and we're looking at kind of the West Midlands. Birmingham's got the highest levels of fuel poverty in England.

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Michaela Cryar: and yet they haven't got the benefit of the social impact of community energy.

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Michaela Cryar: We know we're very aware community can't solve for field poverty. Of course, but

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Michaela Cryar: the amount, I think, in 2021 community energy groups provided grants up to like half a million towards fuel poverty. On a whole, so it can be tremendous. And another example is in London. You've got South, East, London community energy south. Say they've got 11 rooftop projects, but from from there on the ground.

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Michaela Cryar: Fuel, poverty, action going out to speak to people they've been able to speak to 4,000 people in that community. So it's a really good example of like, what can be done in an urban area?

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Michaela Cryar: And also we're looking at kind of how can we help in places like Birmingham and Wolverhampton? This kind of big cities is, you know, they've got a younger population, and we know Eco. Anxiety is on the rise. We know people need to feel a little bit disempowered. So community energies are great.

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Michaela Cryar: Way for people to kind of be empowered and take action. And also it's got, you know, greater levels of diversity. We want to make sure. You know, just transition. And everyone is included. So what we're looking to do. And this is just more for for information really is we're always looking at. How can we step in? So we look, we're gonna focus on Birmingham initially.

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Michaela Cryar: and we are, we are actively at the moment speaking with numerous corporates in the city to say, Have you got roof space?

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Michaela Cryar: This is what community energy is. This is why it's wonderful. This is why we believe in it.

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Michaela Cryar: Can we lease your reef space? Can we install solar on it for you as in unity. We'll do it all with the understanding that it will be sold into community ownership, and then we'll help facilitate the growth of a new community energy group, and then we'll help them with their share. Raise, and then they will buy that project offer. So we will absolutely we will not be making any profit off this. This will be to

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Michaela Cryar: hopefully kickstart community energy in in in a city. So we'll offer them like a turnkey project to say, you know, if you're a brand new group. 1st of all, it can take a very long time to establish find like mighty people.

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Michaela Cryar: then, you know, speak to corporates in your spare time, you know. It can take years. We're hoping we can kind of kick, start it, raise a profile. Do a bit of Pr get a bit of buzz about it in the city, and hopefully, then it will organically grow, and then maybe we can help another city if this works anything, if the con concept proves to be successful and productive. So that's bit of a flavor of some of the other things we're looking at. How else can we help

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Michaela Cryar: the sector? Within a fairly small team? So just a reminder, this is our community energy.

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Michaela Cryar: next. So I had Leah a mind blank. Then this is our community energy connect platform. So if you do want to have a look, and it's at unity. Take action. And these are my contact details. And our website, if

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Michaela Cryar: you want to learn more

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Michaela Cryar: soap

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Michaela Cryar: hopefully. That was helpful.

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Michaela Cryar: and be good to understand. And yes, anyone's got any questions. Thoughts. It does feel like a very exciting time with community energy, because the co-OP party in their manifesto, that of one of their 4 points is community energy. And we're actually sponsoring at the Labor Party Conference in September with Co-OP party. We're sponsoring a fringe event all about community energy to really hope to keep it in the kind of

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Michaela Cryar: in in the eye, and and and keep up that momentum with it. So it does feel like hopefully. It's an exciting time for the sector, so I'll just stop sharing my screen.

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Michaela Cryar: If that works

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Michaela Cryar: stop, share.

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Andrew Maliphant: Many, many, many thanks. Okay, that was amazing. I was so so fascinated by some one of this, the slides, I was trying to get a snapshot of it, but to fail to get my fingers working in time. If you're able to send us the presentation that we can share with it with the coin that would be brilliant.

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Michaela Cryar: Yes, absolutely.

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Andrew Maliphant: And and so many send me great things, and then not least about the your volunteering streaming, which I thought was a a brilliant idea, Karl, you have your hand up to make it to ask a question. Then it'd be Mike.

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Cara Naden: Thanks. Quite few. Thank you very much. Michaela.

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Cara Naden: Second time I've heard you speak.

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Cara Naden: which is great to hear what you're doing an influx of oxen energy, too, which is becoming quite a well known brand. I feel. So I have multiple hats. I actually am a director of community entity in Somerset

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Cara Naden: as well as being involved in council. So I've got a couple of questions, if you don't mind. I guess one was about

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Cara Naden: can councils, which is so cool.

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Cara Naden: Tara, through unity

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Cara Naden: because you mentioned individuals and householders. But I don't know if that also extends to kind of corporates.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah. Good, good question. So with the power that we buy it equates to about the equivalent of 60,000 homes. So at the moment is the the way we have the setup. It is just for domestic consumers, because the volume isn't great enough to supply accounts. So with that being said, what we are seeing an emergence of especially the bigger projects

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Michaela Cryar: is is council entering into a corporate power purchase agreement. Very different various structures of that. But the community power tariff itself is exclusively for domestic customers. But there are ways, and we're seeing some councils. I think Plymouth is a wonderful example. I don't know if you've probably seen some there where Bristol Council is doing a hell of a lot. But it's more sometimes a specific project of a larger size of how you can connect it up.

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Cara Naden: Yeah. Cause I was thinking, from talent, Parish Council point of view, they have very, most not all have very few assets to power. Some mainly have one building

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Cara Naden: or one community hall, for example. So it just seems that it's a missed opportunity for smaller councils not to be able to access local tax, because it's something that we're really trying to drive forward and part of our decarbonisation at 0 planning.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah. Amp.

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Cara Naden: Particularly, we don't have funding necessarily to put on our own moves. It to me seems like a quite simple solution. If that could be

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Cara Naden: more broadly awful. Word more accessible for smaller demand, I guess, is the point.

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Michaela Cryar: Yes, and it's when we're looking at in the future. I guess it's probably something to add with councils and appreciate all councils vary in size, but councils typically

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Michaela Cryar: by their power as a huge kind of purchasing entity, and some of them collaborate with other councils. This famous one, called Laser in the South.

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Cara Naden: Yeah, so not.

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Cara Naden: I would disagree for town and Parish council. That generally doesn't happen. But I agree with you for kind of county or district scale. That's and we're I mean, for that scale, also tied into Ccs and stuff like that. But for town and parish councils in particular, they are quite small in many areas, and they aren't tied to to purchasing through those kind of mechanisms. So unity would be really great for them to access. If that could be made.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah, I think it'd be given the size of them. Then it could be worth a conversation so happy to have. Yeah, an instruction or something that'd be really great.

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Cara Naden: And then, with my community energy, have to on so obviously, we've got installations on some schools, for example. So we sell

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Cara Naden: what what we generate to them directly.

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Cara Naden: and then any access goes to the grid. You're saying that we could sell that rather than to the grid

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Cara Naden: to unity.

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Michaela Cryar: Yes, when you, when you sell to the grid, you've got a couple of options, you can either do kind of like a small export guarantee, or you can enter into a power purchase agreement. So it depends. Quite often a power purchase agreement is more kind of economically favorable. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. We've got about 100 schools on our books that export

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Michaela Cryar: small amounts during the school holidays, etc.

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Cara Naden: And does that affect the feed in tariff? If they're tied into that.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah, exactly.

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Cara Naden: You can't.

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Michaela Cryar: No.

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Cara Naden: Eden turf, and so.

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Michaela Cryar: No, you yeah, you can't do both. No, no, no, yes, if you yeah. And but.

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Cara Naden: Kind of a new ones going forward, then is.

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Michaela Cryar: New new ones going forward, but also at the moment. The market's higher than the feeding tariff.

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Michaela Cryar: So, and it's been higher than the food and carry for a number of years. And then.

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Cara Naden: Change.

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Michaela Cryar: Oh, yeah, I'm gonna yeah. And if it dips and you switch back onto the feed and tariff once you, you can go back onto the feed and tariff. It's it's not once you come off that you can't go back onto it.

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Michaela Cryar: It's once every kind of 12 months.

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Cara Naden: Is that true? I thought once you put in and got the fee and tab guarantee. Then you were tied into 25 years.

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Michaela Cryar: You've got the option to secure feeling sorry for 20 years, but you've got. We've we have many groups that will

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Michaela Cryar: that were on feeding tariffs switched to power purchase agreements, and then, earlier in the year, the feeding tariff was slightly higher, so they switched to feeding tariffs on that for 12 months, but then they've already secured.

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Cara Naden: Right.

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Michaela Cryar: A year after come off it. Yeah, very interesting.

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Cara Naden: Okay, I'll investigate that further, because it'd be really good for

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Cara Naden: cause community energy. Sorry. So Hi, Jack and I will let you speak. Mike is that there is without the feed and tariff. We now require to deliver quite large scale.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah.

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Cara Naden: Projects in order to get enough still to return on investment.

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Cara Naden: Which makes it challenging now to go forward on smaller kind of school or community buildings.

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Cara Naden: And then I wonder if there's a way kind of grouping a number of installations through a Ppa

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Cara Naden: that would make it more financially viable. If we could then sell for your unity

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Cara Naden: their tariff.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah, at the at the moment. The grouping doesn't doesn't

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Michaela Cryar: work so much, but I I think with it, with every school or any rooft asset. Really, if you can get on site usage to be on site consumption to be close to the 80% mark, and it becomes viable. But yes is is. It's hardest to do.

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Cara Naden: Challenging to get to that point. Yeah.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah, exactly, but happy to have him a separate call with you, Kara, to talk through some of the detail of all this.

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Cara Naden: Won't she? Oh.

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Andrew Maliphant: Right. Thanks. Car. There's a john's put a question in the chat but to to look at, but for before then, Mike, your your question, my friend.

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: I I really just wanted to touch base with you. I'm I'm running the hey community resilience initiative, and it's a 3

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: pillar assembly driven

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: initiative, one of which addresses food and self-sufficiency and food

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: the middle pillar which holds it all together, is is a an initiative in order to prevent people having to use the Nhs as their mental wellbeing declines. Assuming things are gonna get worse. And we already have a problem anyway. Mental health.

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Michaela Cryar: Yes.

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: and the 3rd one is an energy company which we want to start up, and we want to generate the equivalent of the amount of energy that we that we actually use currently

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: and basically, I just wanted to say that that

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: that if if we can, if I can get in touch with you. We can get started because I haven't actually launched that pillar yet.

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: and it will be launched within us only

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: where we will have to give a certain amount of education to the participants. It will be a very facilitative process

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: for them to be able to make a decision about the way forward that they would like to go. And then we want to get started as soon as possible. We have organizations in Wales who are looking into or are actually involved in community energy.

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: They would be involved in advising us as well, particularly the Langatox Green Valley Organization. That that puts in local energy production

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: systems. But

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: what we're looking for, I think, I think you actually are going to be providing what we're looking for. So

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: Hi, and if you don't mind, I'll be in touch.

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Michaela Cryar: Yes, yeah, that'd be wonderful and great to see that it's 1 of your your pillars, and we are actually working on a bit of a roadmap as well to help when new people want to kind of set up a community integrate, what are the the kind of then? The next step. So yeah, be great to have

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Michaela Cryar: a conversation.

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: Okay. Fantastic. Thank you very much.

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Andrew Maliphant: Mike, there's so many great things happening today. I think we'll be in touch with you as well. See if you'd like to share that with our future banter sessions, because that would be great for us to to spread the news about what you do. Great stuff!

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Andrew Maliphant: I've got John's question in the chat.

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Andrew Maliphant: mikaya. So it says, what is your take on community resilience, for example, local power

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Andrew Maliphant: post it now come back. Up

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Andrew Maliphant: there we go, local power networks and battery storage.

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Andrew Maliphant: For example, community like us in the Forest of Dean, we do have outages.

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Michaela Cryar: Hang up.

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Andrew Maliphant: So that's this sort of question.

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Michaela Cryar: Yes, yeah. Good good question, I think, with

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Michaela Cryar: like, we seeing a bit of an increase of micro grids, etc, and Bristol energy Pop have done a great job of of working with a flexibility or organization that've done a bit of a micro grid. I think

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Michaela Cryar: I think it will be will be the future. I think battery storage is still hard economically to stack up in in some scenarios, so it isn't quite the kind of the golden goose at at the moment. But you know, as you know, no technologies advancing at the way of nots. John, you've got your hand up, is there?

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Michaela Cryar: Oh, I think you're on mute. Sorry.

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Andrew Maliphant: You're muted, John.

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Andrew Maliphant: John, you're on mute.

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Andrew Maliphant: Okay, he's he's working on it.

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John Payne: I am working. Got it now.

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Michaela Cryar: Oh, there you are!

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Andrew Maliphant: Yay!

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John Payne: Yeah, sorry about that.

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John Payne: yeah, yeah. I suppose that I'm I'm looking at the way that the tariffs work. I have octopus to

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John Payne: power on my my

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John Payne: electric vehicle at night, and it, it's it's about how you have solutions to to. You know, when you've got a village like we have about 500 people.

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John Payne: How? How are you going to actually

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John Payne: damn?

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John Payne: You know, sort of put in electric charges. For example. You know we had great problems that the village didn't have a good enough supply to to actually power all the cars if everybody converted to electric vehicles.

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John Payne: the

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John Payne: And that's why I'm came at sort of the solutions that you make

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John Payne: on a neighborhood basis. Really, you know, to help people out to store energy, and and to have the tariffs make electric vehicles attractive.

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Michaela Cryar: Yes, yes, I'm on one of the optus electric vehicle tariffs as well, and they are good at charging during the night. And when the electricity cheaper. But in terms of our involvement at Unity wouldn't be to roll out kind of an ev

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Michaela Cryar: charging

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Michaela Cryar: program. It's more if there's a community energy group that wants to install chargers in their local area, then we will try and facilitate and make connections and and and

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Michaela Cryar: focus on that. But our our role is certainly not to to roll out Ev charges and that sort of stuff. I mean, there's so much that needs to be done in the energy space. And there's so many different avenues. But because our focus is on supporting community energy groups. If if you know, 20 community energy groups were coming to us and saying, we need to install ev charges in our own. This is what our plans are, then that would probably be a real focus for us. But

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Michaela Cryar: we've only had a couple of groups that are looking to do that. And we we have tried to offer support. So there's also a balance of what what do the groups need from us? What are they asking for? Versus? What? What can we deliver cause? What we don't wanna do is kind of

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Michaela Cryar: tell community groups what they should be doing, or or shouldn't, or what their focus should be. But yeah, you you're right? We we need infrastructure change. And I think, with with villages. John, what's what we've seen that's been really interesting is villages that are based that have oil for heating. There's a famous one called Swatham Prior, that managed to get that village off oil

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Michaela Cryar: and they, you know, they're connected with the local Solar farm, etc. So that's a really great example of what can be done. And I think that's probably the the number. One challenge is getting some of these villages off of oil more than anything.

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John Payne: Thank you. Yes, that's great. Yeah.

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Andrew Maliphant: Thank you, Power. I think we wanted to add in something here.

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Cara Naden: Yeah, sorry. Thanks. It was

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Cara Naden: another 2 pointer. One was about engaging with other organizations that support community energy. So joining up networks like center sustainable energy which is now doing national support on in increasing energy efficiency and decarbonization with

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Cara Naden: they've got an amazing planning toolkit to engage communities and local town and parish council. So that's very much community led at that point. While.

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Cara Naden: Like something's just sort of being swooped into.

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Michaela Cryar: Take it from.

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Cara Naden: Of opportunities. So it's kind of making sure that we're all joining up.

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Michaela Cryar: Oops!

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Cara Naden: This, because it then goes on the back of the the previous John, speaking, saying about opportunities.

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Cara Naden: particularly in the South West. So you know, noted you're looking at areas that already don't have many community energies. But.

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Cara Naden: for example, southwest Somerset and around are really struggling to be able to deliver, so that we've got appetite and more community.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah.

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Cara Naden: Starting to deliver renewable energy when it comes to the fact of being viable in terms of grid connection. If I.

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Michaela Cryar: In, the.

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Cara Naden: It's impossible. So again.

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Cara Naden: building unity into that network with others, to then be able to kind of lobby upwards, to re release and reduce some of those barriers would be really helpful.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah.

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Cara Naden: Nothing worse than getting everyone whipped up and really excited about opportunities, then find infrastructure. Failure is not gonna enable us to do that. And how then we don't want to disappoint people.

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Cara Naden: So I just kind of wondered how unity would be kind of working more place in engaging those other

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Cara Naden: community energy networks and support organizations, build that critical mass. So that now we've got the new government saying the right things. What we need them to do is urgently make those system changes for us to deliver community energy at pace that links in with retro fit, because, similarly.

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Michaela Cryar: Yes.

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Cara Naden: It's great that Swatham could do that because they were off

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Cara Naden: gas grid, so to speak. So.

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Cara Naden: But that puts more pressure, as we all elect

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Cara Naden: electrify our heating and transport.

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Cara Naden: You know this kind of goes hand in hand with renewable energy. Opportunities for that demand profile

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Cara Naden: that would make it easier. And so she buff us on. Please be quiet. I just wanted to put opportunities there are to kind of do do that networking enhance that data. So then we can feed back and not be fast. Change.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah, absolutely. No. I think it's a really good point. So we work closely with the likes of like region and obviously community, etc. But I think for central energy, that's a really good call, and we we could and should be doing more with them. So if you've got any key people that you think we should be speaking to Kara, any instructions would be very welcome.

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Michaela Cryar: And I think, yeah, you you are absolutely right. And that's why we seen such a growth of rooftop solar because of of good connection issues, etc. But I think

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Michaela Cryar: we we know there's a lot of grid form that needs to happen. And you know, looking at the heat maps of certain dns and what's available and what's not and I think, from a policy perspective. I mean, we are. We submitted our response to the barriers to community energy. And you know, grid was formed part of that response.

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Michaela Cryar: also with it, within octopus as well. Octopus obviously do a lot of kind of policy, etc, and something that they're really looking at is kind of more the systematic change, because at the moment, like you say, Cara, like projects that are are stalled, things can't happen because of

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Michaela Cryar: capacity and various stuff. So doctors are looking at something called like locational pricing. So at the moment we've got, you know, the one Uk grid. And if you put a load of wind turbines in Scotland, there's no incentive. If you were to build like a brand new factory to build it anywhere near

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Michaela Cryar: electricity generation. So we've got electricity trialling up and down the country. There's no kind of connectivity. To make kind of coherent decisions. What's best for the grid in the system. So locational pricing

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Michaela Cryar: would kind of would change, that is, in another country. So that's the sort of policy that all of us are advocating, for which in turn, we should in theory help support community groups as well. So there's a lot to be done. But again, just feel like I'm hopefully, not a bit of an optimistic time. With the the change of government fingers crossed. But yeah, thank you, Cara.

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Cara Naden: Thanks.

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Andrew Maliphant: There are things we understand that the national grid is not a perfect connection around the nation. There's also I was at a parliamentary reception earlier. There was a very small person attending. I wasn't speaking at it about the legislative changes that may be required in terms of. There was an Electricity bill which was looking to make it easier for people who generated electricity locally to sell it locally.

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Andrew Maliphant: So I'm aware of those 2 particular twin issues. Are those the main issues? Would you say, Nicole, in terms of preventing this? This? sector moving forward.

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Michaela Cryar: I slightly disagree on the local energy

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Michaela Cryar: plan only because of the the bill as it stands, hasn't moved forward. And I think that's because I mean, obviously, it'd be great for communities to be able to supply their local community. I think we'd all we'd all want that with that billing itself. There was a few kind of question marks a little bit around the detail. And this kind of regulatory reform that would need to happen to allow something like that to actually move forward. So I think there's a quite a few reasons why that

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Michaela Cryar: it didn't progress, because what we don't want is just be able to put an aesthetic on badge on something to say. Oh, that's locally supplied, but there's no cost, benefit, or

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Michaela Cryar: which in the current rules and regulation of of the Uk energy market. That's exactly what it would be. So yeah, I think we get asked a lot people would love to supply locally. But yeah, the the kind of deeper regulatory framework needs to be amended rather than kind of a sticky plaster, I think. Personally, but yeah, I think that the biggest barrier, you know, I think we all we all know the feeding tariff was was wonderful and

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Michaela Cryar: and create that budget certainty. So, Carl, speaking about feeding tariff earlier, and what that does mean. If you're doing a financial model, you always know you can get that guaranteed price. Yes, you may come off it to power, purchase agreement and get more. But you know you can get that guaranteed price because there isn't that guaranteed bank ability for the next 15 years, and that is a bit of a

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Michaela Cryar: a barrier. Grid is always one. We we spoke with one group a couple of weeks ago. They want to do a ground solar. Quite a big project it's got

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Michaela Cryar: planning. It's got everything. But they can't get grid till 2037. So these are the kind of the real issues that that we're seeing.

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Michaela Cryar: And I think just awareness of it as well that I think the profile needs to be

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Michaela Cryar: to be greater of community energy. I think once you hear about it, you can't not like it really. So we just need more people to know about it and advocate for it.

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Andrew Maliphant: I'm also think I've been drafting some letters to the new Government ministers on the basis that the soon we get all various ideas in the better. So that's that's something that we can go go forward with. But thank you. And obviously there is more detail. Thank you very much for that, Amanda, you've got your hand up.

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Amanda Davis: Hello! Thank you, Michaela, for having introduced the relationship with me. Cantis and I I just wanted to pop in to say, from the point of view, from values

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Amanda Davis: and from the point of view of understanding small smaller parish and town councils. The point that Cara raised. I'm there, I'm with you. I'm working in partnership as a director, and you're obviously an operational director, whereas I'm a director on the board with policy and those sorts of strategic decisions of the

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Amanda Davis: the the parent organization, if you like, of mid counties, co-OP the one half of octopus and mid counties. So anything I can do to push that I will be pushing from an informed parish and Town Council perspective, so just wanted to pick up on Cara's Point.

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Amanda Davis: But also, Michaela, please use me from that perspective. I'm you know, trained as a parish and town council clerk, as well as being a parish councillor

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Amanda Davis: and understanding some of those features. Having said that, I'm not in a parish that does much yet

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Amanda Davis: actively in relation to operationalising climate related projects. But we've got a desire. But we're right back at the early days, and I think Cara, Mike and others that are on this call really are the operational, knowledgeable people.

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Amanda Davis: And then, from my perspective, I also wanted to say, as I put in the chat about Co-OP Mps

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Amanda Davis: and I think most people on the call will know. But for anybody that doesn't. I put it under the category of no silly questions. Or no questions are too silly to ask. Let's put it that way. And obviously Co-OP Mps are one and the same thing as Co-, because they co-OP labour Mps, so they are. And as I put in the chat. Sorry for the grown, but they are in power.

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Amanda Davis: so can easily be lobbied contacted, connected with pushing on open doors there. And again, if if access through the Co-OP party can help, then please let us know how, and I'm sure that through Pete Westall, who you showed on the slide from mid counties. We have the ear. If

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Amanda Davis: we can help more, let us know and then finally, what was the other point I made.

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Amanda Davis: Do you know what? I'll just leave it over to other people? But basically, please do take up the Bristol sustainable energy connection that Cara mentioned. Because, you know, we're pushing on the same doors. And really oh, yeah, that was the important point. But one of the principles of cooperatives to be a cooperative. You have to sign up to the 7 Principles, and one of them is cooperating with other co-ops

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Amanda Davis: and actually cooperation. Never mind with other cults. Just cooperating in general is a is an important principle that that this is based on. So I I wouldn't see anything as being commercially, if you like, competitive, and therefore not possible.

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Amanda Davis: On the other hand, obviously, octopus is a commercial venture. So it's just about finding ways to make this work and join up those connections that are being offered, and I think through great collaboration. And these banter sessions through Andrew and and all of the rest of the team. You've got a great network of knowledge here

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Amanda Davis: to work with you and to help you to help us even more than you already are, which, and thank you for your presentation.

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Michaela Cryar: No, thank you. Manual.

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Andrew Maliphant: Thanks, Amanda. Yes, we we will still switch on our Mps. Absolutely. Mike.

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Andrew Maliphant: just to join the groans.

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: Indeed. One of the things I was wondering about is this new energy company comes in? It sounded from what Ed Miliband was saying that it was, in effect, going to a local community and saying, We will install renewable energy

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: generation in your area, and we will give you a minuscule amount of

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: profit that we will. As a government take from this adventure. And what concerns me is that

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: we may not be able to

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: actually own our own energy generation systems. Does anybody know if that is the case? Or if I'm hopefully barking up the wrong tree.

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Michaela Cryar: I think, from what I've seen, it's still extremely light on detail, but I think that's a a fair summary from kind of what I've seen as well, but I think there's a lot still to to come forward. But I think with dB, energy, and you know, ed miliband, they. They have made it very clear that they want to support community energy, and they're going to put a lot of money hopefully into the sector through loans or grants, or what have you? So I think there's also I guess, a reality. That

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Michaela Cryar: community owned energy is a a key pillar in the just transition. But it's never going to be 100%, we, you know, to reach critical mass. You know, in a climate crisis. And we need many more renewables, as we know. I guess the fact of the matter is, they can't all be community owned, so I guess I've interpreted it as

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Michaela Cryar: Gb. Energy is kind of stepping in making things happen. But they are very supportive community energy. So at this moment, in time, I'm hopefully welcoming, it seems. You know, community energy is part of the conversation which is fantastic. And it's it's quite unusual, really, with with history. So it just fit a bit of a watch this space. It's not all. Yeah. It's certainly not all ironed out from what I've seen. But yeah, it's gonna be very interesting. And hopefully given especially, I know.

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Michaela Cryar: visited quite a few community sites himself.

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Michaela Cryar: I'm yeah cautious, optimistic.

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Mike E - Hay Resilience: That's in fact. Yeah.

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Andrew Maliphant: Kara.

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Cara Naden: Sorry I'm meeting but also, Mark, I think, linking that in to have a requirement. And it's something that councils may start looking into part of their

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Cara Naden: local plan is to say that if it's not

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Cara Naden: going to be a community led, community owned energy entity. But at least there'll be community benefit fund from it. So any profit will then go into a pot for community improvements through energy efficiency and environmental schemes. Which would be good at the very least.

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Cara Naden: But my question really is about linking in with local area energy plans Michaela. And if you start to look at particularly where councils have start to deliver in the process. Delivering that Somerset Council did a version not quite the end detail, but certainly gives a kind of overview of what may be viable in terms of all different types of renewal. But energy.

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Cara Naden: again, linking that in with community energy groups are helping to facilitate the start of community groups where they can see that as an opportunity is that something they're also looking at.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah. So we we as a an entity aren't focused on that just because of kind of resource. And you've got to focus on certain things. So it's it's making sure we tell community groups about it. And I think, I don't know if you know community South and their pathways program. They've been absolutely tremendous in

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Michaela Cryar: speaking with councils, looking at their local energy plans and really dissecting it and making sure that community energy can marry up and really tick certain boxes. And from that they've had quite a bit success. So they're doing quite a lot of mentoring, and that is absolutely their approach. So we we work with community South trying off support. But it's more kind of

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Michaela Cryar: creating awareness that this is what some councils are doing. And this is

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Michaela Cryar: where it has worked well with some areas and hasn't with others. And we all know councils. Local authorities differ wildly. But yeah, it's nothing we are personally doing. But we are aware of it. And we've seen some great success. I think. Yeah, I think community energy South and their pathways program is absolutely fantastic. And that's exactly Cara, what they're what they're all about.

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Cara Naden: Hmm! So I was just thinking then about it already. Highlights. What is viable? So half that works done already.

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Cara Naden: and particularly where we have got, because I'll clearly say as well to meet that day by 2030. It's going to be impossible to the grids upgraded, so you can immediately see that this isn't an area necessary to put so much effort into starting community groups, whereas other areas have got local energy plans without community groups.

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Cara Naden: half that works really done, isn't it? And then you can just go in and say, right, these are the opportunities

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Cara Naden: who's in the community is really keen to help decarbonise them and

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Cara Naden: create more cost efficient energy solutions. And we can use those plans as a way to start unlocking some of the delivery.

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Michaela Cryar: Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. And we really see as well, you know, local authorities. There needs to be clear targets for renewables, because it feels quite often. It's easy to say no to planning rather than saying yes, whereas if they had, like, you know, certain areas like key targets, if you need to have X amount of solar wind whatever developed. Then there needs to be that kind of impetus for change and and support rather than just know a few people have objected, and it's a flat. No. So I just feel like local authorities. The councils are a real kind of

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Michaela Cryar: a pivotal point of supporting it. And yeah, you can see 1st hand the areas where the councils have been supported. The difference it has made and obviously some councils are bankrupt, and it's a different scenario and the different priorities. But yeah, I think you're definitely right.

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Cara Naden: But I guess equally with that. If counts hasn't got funny itself such as this one

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Cara Naden: it can still be introduced, and make those partnerships with community energy. We've got 7 active community groups or so we active in Somerset. So we know, you know, this is entities exist. And I guess it's about

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Cara Naden: facilitating, as you say, is bringing together those opportunities, because if we've kept bang on the door

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Cara Naden: externally with community energy hats on it's not until we get to that point with a plan and saying, Okay, well, if you can't fund it, why don't we? Partnership? Because councils can't access funding externally. And certainly with the funding that's available for private and enterprise to partner with community energy would be a really great solution to drive this forward.

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Cara Naden: Yep.

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Michaela Cryar: I agree.

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Andrew Maliphant: One of the missions, for the great collaboration itself is to gather good practice on ways forward. And certainly term we're joining up is like our middle name, really, getting people to work together is so much important and at all all levels of of the of the current issues that we're facing.

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Andrew Maliphant: I have spoken with. Say, community South, that they have an ambition to have community energy advisors across the whole nation. They haven't got there yet, but they're working on it. They've got.

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Andrew Maliphant: Saying do already, which is where we're

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Andrew Maliphant: interesting, of having our part of our extended service. So I think there are things that we can be, keep doing that. And I think, continuing to join up. And it's great that these sessions can be a bit of a fulcrum for that, and getting people to come together, and we're very pleased to be doing that.

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Andrew Maliphant: right. Well, we've had a great session here today. There will be some more to come. I will be contacting Mike about giving talk about A on Y at this event.

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Andrew Maliphant: We're having some I mean the the chair for these events for the next 4 weeks. And so any suggestions or ideas for speakers, or I think people would like to hear about, please, that let us know Mikhail is just putting her her email in the chat, I'm sure, so that we can talk about that. I'd like to thank Mikai again enormously for her

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Andrew Maliphant: presence here today, and bringing the knowledge and information that she has to us. Amanda, you've got your hand up. Do you have another question to raise.

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Amanda Davis: Well, it was your point that you just said about speakers. Could I just take a straw poll from people or from you, Andrew, as chair. Whether a speaker who's very knowledgeable on climate anxiety, but very much at the local level. It's not way above an academic. And what have you? It's it's very practical and very community, sort of oriented. Would that be of interest

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Amanda Davis: near.

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Andrew Maliphant: Yeah, that sounds good.

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Amanda Davis: Her name's Linda Asby. She's in in my area. I think it's Moreton in Marsh area, and I can pass on the details and talk with you separately, Andrew. Thank you.

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Andrew Maliphant: Please do. Yes, and I think it was been said earlier. I think Mccara mentioned earlier today that young people in particular are getting more concerned about this. And of course, as we know, people of all ages can see that there's something needs to happen, but they don't necessarily know what to do next. And again, these are all things that we're very keen to address from great collaboration.

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Andrew Maliphant: Great! We've got some great chats, the chat, the chats obviously will be shared as well as the recording from today.

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Andrew Maliphant: So many thanks to all the points made in the chat. I don't think there's any sort of questions from there. I'd like to again thank Nakhala for coming to see us today, and we will be in touch, and I'm sure there are members of people here who will be in touch with you very soon about some of the things you've raised. Thank you very much, and thank you. Everybody for coming.

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Michaela Cryar: Thank you.

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Stuart Withington: Thank you.

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Andrew Maliphant: Good.

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Amanda Davis: Thank you.

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Andrew Maliphant: I'll email you, Mike.

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Andrew Maliphant: yeah, mute Matt.

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Andrew Maliphant: Good.