The summer is officially here! 3 days of consistent sunshine confirms it!

On the hottest day of the year so far the Brixton Energy interns were up on the roof of Elmore House looking at the 37kWp system in action.

Eric Schloss, the intern co-ordinator, talked the interns through solar feasibility and how this feeds into the financial model. Having spoken about crowd funding and community share offers the week before the interns understood the need to make sure the co-operative shareholders are repaid by the income from energy generation, sale and export. This is the heart of how community energy operates!

Although the landscape has shifted massively by the Feed-In-Tariff changes in recent years there is a common understanding that in order to continue installing community owned renewable energy systems in urban areas, onsite usage needs to be maximised. Hence, schools and other public sector buildings are becoming more viable. In this vein of thinking we are in talks with Loughborough Primary School next door, visible from the roof of Elmore House.

The community energy game is changing and so it was great that on this sunny Thursday afternoon the Brixton Energy interns got to see a piece of history on their own doorsteps.