An email from the London-based nonprofit climate activist group 10:10 first gave the Balcombe neighbors the idea of launching a renewable energy project. The neighbors were on board. But they didn’t realize how difficult it would be.
They looked at perhaps 100 rooftops, some of which would have been “fantastic” for solar power, says Nixon. But finding suitable community solar sites can be a challenge because buildings that can support large projects often are owned by landlords who don't see the advantage of reducing future energy costs through solar. (Their tenants pay the electric bills.)
That’s just one reason most of the more than 5,000 community energy groups in the United Kingdom focus on modest efforts like household energy audits and weatherization. Only a few hundred have tried generating electricity, says Philip Wolfe, chairman of the nonprofit Community Energy England and an industry pioneer who served as first chief executive of BP Solar in the early 1980s.