Debbie Bourne on success of Commmunity Energy in Camden

Imagine it’s July 2030, six years after the new Prime Minister started a National Energy Company.

Community energy now powers 2.2 million homes, contributing 5,270MW to the energy system.

Looking back it’s amazing to see how quickly it happened: Within a year of the National Energy Company being set up, it started giving capital backing to community groups like Power Up North London. 

Around the country, there was a huge increase in community solar and heat pumps being installed and a rollout of retrofit. 

Energy saving clubs helped us all become very energy savvy.

Now the streets around Camden have their own micro-energy companies. 

Debbie Bourne, Anna Woodeson and Ian Grant encourage residents to get involved with getting Camden to its zero-emission target (Image: Debbie Bourne)

The Local Electricity Bill enables householders and renters to export power to their neighbours, providing cheap energy for those in need. 

The decoupling of electricity prices from gas, to reflect cheaper renewable energy, really helped promote the switch away from gas appliances.

Camden Council is now heading towards its zero-emission target on all properties. 

There are solar streets, and solar on all council roofs. After retrofitting the housing stock, heat pumps were installed.

Communities have set up battery energy banks. Surplus heat from industrial cooling systems, which was still being wasted in 2024, is now used to heat homes.

Along the way, training and skills became essential. 

What started as a project by Think&Do and Power Up North London to train 30 people to become Energy Saving Advisors in July 2024, quickly scaled up. 

Last year the 1,000th person passed through the ‘Camden Reclaiming the Power Academy.’

A local co-op was set up to run the ‘Wastebusters: Electronic Re-use and Recycling facility,’ at the former Regis Road recycling centre. Over 75% of electronic items in Camden are now repaired.

But back to July 2024: If we all join together to become one big energy-aware community, backed by a new National Energy Company, it’s amazing what we can achieve in six years. 
Let’s turn this vision into a reality and reclaim our power.

We can all start right now: Power Up North London is raising money via a community share offer to install solar on Parliament Hill and Regent High School: powerupnorthlondon.org/schools2/

• Debbie Bourne is head of imagination at thinkanddocamden.org.uk and Anna Woodeson and Ian Grant are directors of Power Up North London.