I met Dr Vicky Dunn earlier this year at Co-op Congress, where we both talked on a panel about Community Energy. Vicky works for Community Energy Grimsby, who currently have a Solar Community Share Offer. She was gracious enough to answer some questions about Grimsby Community Energy and their Community Share Offer. Personally, I have invested in the Share Offer as I believe in Renewable Energy Co-operative and have a good track record, having raised nearly £500,000 for Community Energy.

You can learn more about Grimsby Community Energy here. To invest, email GCE info@grimsbycommunityenergy.coop for a brochure and form

1) How did Grimsby Community Energy begin? (Was there a specific problem you were trying to solve)

In 2015 three people came together wanting to put solar PV on roofs to cut energy costs for local organisations, and to fight climate change.  We believed we could make a community business doing this, and indeed, that’s what we’ve done.  In 2016 we were pushed to the energy co-op route by the government cutting the feed in tariff for solar energy.   The commercial routes we had been looking at evaporated overnight. So we registered as a community benefit society, ran our first community share offer, and got solar on 5 roofs just in time. These were two charity shops, and three belonging to E Factor which is a non-profit supporting local small businesses.

2) What challenges did you have at the start?

Not having many people involved, so it was a lot of work for the three of us.  Many of our early investors were friends and family.  We gradually got bigger and also benefitted from grant funding to develop our projects which resulted in having paid staff which meant things were easier.

3) How did Grimsby Community Energy find its niche?

Our niche is putting renewables on community buildings.  We haven’t yet done any commercial buildings.   We didn’t set out this way – our eyes were on Grimsby’s fish docks which have a lot of cold stores which naturally use most electricity in warm sunny weather and are good prospects for solar PV.  However, once we realised that mostly helping community organisations had become our niche, it became a major selling point.    In concrete terms, when I get a payment from one of the little charity shop installs from 2016 I always think that their bill would be triple that without our solar PV.   I personally can’t afford to donate £100 or so quid every few months to St Andrew’s Hospice and the Rock Foundation (supports the vulnerable, including food banks.)    Being part of GCE I have managed to save them significant running costs instead.   Our 2020 project was 98kW of solar PV on the YMCA Humber building.

4) How does the local area impact what Grimsby Community Energy does? Grimsby has a reputation for being a deprived area

Yes, some parts of Grimsby are among the most deprived in the country.   Other parts including Cleethorpes are really nice.   The chemicals, food and offshore wind industries do provide some well paying jobs to locals.    We’ve got about 50/50 local investors and people from further afield. It’s true that our minimum investment of £100 is not realistic for many people, but we have still made our way up to 120 investing Members and counting.   I think the people from further afield are concerned about climate change and supportive of renewable energy in general. Our logo has our beloved Dock Tower on it, with wind turbine blades added which is a nod to our old and our new offshore industries. We’ve got quite a few investors who work in the renewables industries, including business investors who are like any other Member except we thank them publicly.

5) What has Grimsby Community Energy’s biggest success been?

Our biggest project to date is 463 kW of solar over 5 roofs at the CATCH apprentice training centre.  This centre trains the engineers of the future and does a lot in the decarbonisation field itself.  Another big success for me is that we have our sixteenth student currently on placement with us. I know how beneficial I found the industrial placements I did during my chemistry degree, and I really like to work with these young people. Several of them have gone on to get the first jobs they wanted and I’m so happy to have helped with that.

6) What has Grimsby Community Energy’s biggest failure been?

Ouch. I don’t think we’ve had any big failures thank goodness! Actually, my elderly laptop dying last week with important things on it is a reminder to sort things out in good time!

7) How did the current share offer come about and how is it going?

We were working on a business support project with our friends at E Factor and we worked with CATCH to provide them with an energy audit and action plan. The guy who does these, Ian Gibbs of Professional Energy Management Ltd was one of our early investors as it happens.  This opened the conversation about solar PV.  As a non profit, they felt a natural fit working with us.   So there was a big opportunity – all those welding and pipefitting apprentices need a lot of electricity in their workshop and canteen.  The conference centre is a fairly large building too, as is the scaffolding building.   We covered 3 of their buildings in our 2023 share offer, and put the next two in our current 2024 offer.

This new offer is a different approach for us, being open for a longer time and looking to deliver a pipeline of projects.  Next up is the St Andrew’s Hospice main site which is for obvious reasons another big energy user.   We are developing even more projects as we go.

Progress has been a bit slow on Crowdfunder – some of which is down to it being our second offer in two years so we have to cast our net wider for investors.   We are looking at other options now and are confident we will get there.   We’ve already got CATCH done, and expect to do the next project late this year.

8) What are the benefits to investing in the share offer? Community, individual, and organisational?

We’ve saved our community organisation customers about £65k on their electricity bills to date.  This will increase a lot when we add it up at the end of 2024 because we’ve added more solar PV to more buildings.  This money stays in our local economy, helping our customers do their good work.   We are getting increasing interest from the health sector, who have net zero targets but little resource to deliver them.

To the individual, they get to be part of something worth doing.  I’ve been an environmental campaigner and involved in politics.  It’s good to be working hard for something instead of fighting against the many, many bad things in the world.    Individuals know what use their money is being put to by us.  That’s a contrast to their ISA or pension funds fuelling some horror they are seeing on the news. I’d say the 5% target interest is of medium importance to most of our investors.   Having the Community Shares Standard Mark is important to us to demonstrate quality.

You can learn more about Grimsby Community Energy here. To invest, email GCE info@grimsbycommunityenergy.coop for a brochure and form.