By BEC Project Director, Damian Tow
I thought that it might be useful to provide a bit of background of how we got to setting up Brighton Energy Co-op, and what motivates us to want to create a community-owned renewable energy project in Brighton. I say us but actually I am writing from my perspective and doubtless my fellow Directors, Will & Danni, will describe their own stories another time.
I got involved with the original concept of BEC in early July 2010 after hearing that Will was doing a public meeting at the Phoenix Centre. I didn’t actually attend as I chose to go mountain biking instead that evening as given the chance to be outside, particularly in the summer, I will always be there! I got in touch with Will though and over a few hours of conversations in various Brighton cafes I decided that I liked the concept of setting up a community-owned energy project and wanted to get involved at some level.
I also saw this as a great opportunity to put into practice some of the learning and experience gained on the Masters in Sustainable Development I did at Forum for the Future in 2008-9. To cut a life story short, I had worked in business from the age of 24 to 38 but my values have always been as environmentally and socially minded as commercial, so after 7 years at BT I decided to take the leap and become a mature student again.
Like any tough decisions, I find that if you think them through long enough, take advice and make them for the right reasons then you generally have no regrets. I certainly have none as suddenly I found myself working and studying with people who had similar values to me, thought for themselves (often very vocally), did not dismiss me as a token ‘hippy’ and actually had passion about big picture issues rather than sports teams… These like-minded people are described as ‘pioneers’, compared with ‘prospectors’ and ‘settlers’ but more about that another time!
Anyway – so renewable energy. Well of the many subject areas covered when studying sustainable development (essentially fixing the broken bits of the world) being involved in renewable energy and helping behaviour change really interested me. Given the science/sociology split of those 2 fields I did not expect to find, or indeed create, a role that allowed being involved in both. A community-owned energy co-op does however, as our plan is to use income from the solar Feed in Tariff, after paying a return to shareholders, to invest in further energy efficiency and education initiatives to reduce CO2 being generated but also importantly to help householders save money.
That’s enough from me for now, but doubtless more later!
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