Luton’s collaborative charity solar project

At the leafy edge of Luton you’ll find Keech Hospice, which provides end-of-life care to terminally ill children and adults across the region. On the roof of the building, one of the town’s biggest solar projects is in its final stages. There’s an interesting story behind it, and a model for community solar that is the first of its kind in the UK.

The project came out of a chance meeting, when solar entrepreneur Eddie Doherty was introduced to representatives from Keech at a networking event. On hearing that he worked in renewables, they told him how their energy costs had risen and the pressure that had put on their budgets. Doherty left that day wondering if he could help in some way, and then got in touch. “Not knowing what was ahead of us, we went back to them and said we’ll install something for free for you.”

Doherty’s company, Edtricity, was not in a position to deliver a project of this scale single-handedly. “It would have been an uphill struggle with square wheels if we had tried to do it on our own,” he says, and so it became a collaborative effort. Discussions with a new wholesaler led to a donation of 504 panels from Astronergy, one of the world’s largest PV manufacturers. Another major player, Clenergy, donated the mounting systems.

Alongside these national and international suppliers, local networks would be vital to the install itself. Word spread through Luton’s community of Irish owned construction companies, who opened their contact books and widened the circle of partners. Companies offered scaffolding for free, one provided a fork-lift hoist for the duration of the install. Various companies lent their staff to run the electrics through the site, while other electricians came in on the weekend to help.

504 panels is a big installation, and this has been done collaboratively too. Local solar firms have sent teams to the hospice free of charge, or when there’s a gap between jobs. Last week installers from three different firms were on the roof. As Doherty points out, these companies would normally be competitors, and that’s what makes the project unique. “We’ve got some of the UK’s biggest suppliers, wholesalers, and they’re all working together. It’s a unity between giants of the sector that would normally be – not at loggerheads exactly, but certainly in healthy competition. They’ve put that aside, and what better way to come together than for Keech?”

The installation will finish this month, and it will make a significant difference to the charity. They will save fifty to sixty thousand pounds a year over the lifetime of the panels, without having to pay anything themselves for the install. As I’ve written about before recently, solar is a gift that will keep on giving.

Sometimes charitable projects like this one are crowdfunded. This one is different. As it started out of a business context, they chose not to take donations. “All we wanted was people, time, skills and products,” says Doherty. That makes it a collaborative effort from the business sector, and potentially a model that could be replicated. Although it was a huge amount of work, “more people could be doing it, if they have the opportunity and the platform. We should be doing it. Hopefully it leads on to other solar projects being done this way.”