We’re really pleased to welcome our 28th solar school to the Low Carbon Hub. Longfields Primary and Nursery School in Bicester now have a fully installed array of solar panels that will provide around a third of the school’s energy needs.  Longfields is the latest to join a growing number of schools across Oxfordshire to…

Low Carbon Hub has joined forces with an expert consortium of partners in a new project called The Next Generation, a fund to develop new decentralised, decarbonised, and democratised energy business models.  The Next Generation fund will provide grants of up to £100,000 to ten community energy groups to work on new business models for…

The new generation season for Sandford Hydro is restarting again with the (slow) return of the rains! Clean electricity is now being generated by the hydro on the weir at Sandford, although not yet at full power. It is the large winter output of the hydro that brilliantly complements solar panels, which this summer experienced record…

There are lots of reasons to invest in the Low Carbon Hub. When we ask our investors, they talk about wanting to do their bit to tackle climate change, support local projects and make their money do a social good.  Check out our infographic below where we’ve picked out just ten reasons to invest in…

As you’ve probably noticed, it has been fairly sunny in Oxfordshire recently!  This means that at the moment some of our solar schools who are getting most of their electricity from their solar panels. They are not only using renewable energy and cutting CO2 emissions, but they are also saving money!  Percentage of electricity currently coming from…

The results are in for our 2018 ‘How are we doing?’ survey and they show that people continue to trust in our expertise around local, renewable energy and low carbon. Our respondents also continue to perceive us to be committed to the creation of a low carbon, locally owned renewable energy system. We’re really pleased…

Following a recent election, the community group members of Low Carbon Hub’s CIC have elected a new Community Director to the Board of Directors: Nina Alphey.  Nina is a long-term member of Westmill Solar Co-operative Ltd and has served on its Board since 2016. She was also an active member of low carbon community group…

Large grants We are offering two grants of up to £5,000 for this year’s large grants fund, available to our community group members. These grants are part of the ‘community benefit’ we return to communities.  The year’s theme is energy efficiency. We are interested in applications relating to residential, commercial and public buildings; your project…

2017 has been a busy year with some key milestones and achievements for the Low Carbon Hub, including the completion of the Sandford Hydro project, receiving £1.2m in European Regional Development Funding and producing our first ever Social Impact Report. And there were lots of other exciting bits of news in between.  Take a look…

As well as providing help and advice, Low Carbon Hub also offers financial support to  our community shareholder groups wanting to carry out carbon-cutting activity in their community. Here is a case study of what one group did with a small grant we awarded them. Westmill Sustainable Energy Trust (WeSET) was one of the last community groups to successfully…

This video, courtesy of Stone’s Throw Media, shows an unused roof at UTC Aerospace Systems CTG in Banbury being transformed into a people’s power station. Work with us We want to work with more local businesses to develop ‘people’s power stations’ for community benefit. 

First project for social developer Low Carbon Hub within new FiTs regime Oxford, 21 November 2016 ~ CTG, a Banbury-based site of UTC Aerospace Systems, is now host to the UK’s biggest community-owned rooftop solar array. At 712kW, the 2590 panel project will generate 593,304 kWh of clean electricity every year — enough to power 150…