DRCA Community Energy Project Launched!

​​Last Friday our community energy project at the Doddington and Rollo Community Association (DRCA) was officially launched by Marsha de Cordova the MP for Battersea.

The event was hosted by Leonie Cooper, London Assembly Member for Wandsworth and Merton (and member of CREW) and we welcomed guest speaker Alex Hartley from South East London Community Energy (SELCE).

The project replaced all the existing lighting at the DRCA with highly efficient LED bulbs that are controlled by motion sensors. Most of rooms in the DRCA receive no natural light hence the lights need to be on at all times of day. This leads to very high electricity bills. Our project is saving the DRCA £1000 per month.

​CREW worked with Pure Leapfrog to raise the capital for the project, taking out a 0% interest loan, which will be paid back over 10-years using a portion of the money saved each month by DRCA.

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This is the first example of a community energy project in London using an energy services agreement, and will hopefully be a model that can be replicated across the whole of London.

A portion of the money saved by the project will go into a community fund to be spent on social and environmental initiatives in Doddington & Rollo and the surrounding area

This year we will use this money to fund a series of workshops on the Doddington & Rollo estate focused on tackling fuel poverty. These workshops will train volunteers on how to help local people understand the simple changes they can make to reduce their energy bills, for example, switching to different energy tariffs and reducing unnecessary energy usage.

This “train the trainer” model of working with local volunteers to provide energy advice to their fellow residents shares the knowledge with the community creating a long term solution for helping with fuel poverty.

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This is our first project, and we’re incredibly proud of it. This is the first step towards completing our vision of bring community energy to Wandsworth.