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Tamar Energy Community
Tamar Energy CommunityFrom a junior school in Torpoint to the local swimming pool, Tamar Energy Community has quietly built a 327kW portfolio of community-owned solar across the Tamar Valley, while helping local households battle rising energy bills.
Project overview
Tamar Energy Community (TEC) is a not-for-profit Community Benefit Society working for the benefit of the Tamar Valley and the surrounding area of West Devon and East Cornwall.
Its mission is to put local people at the heart of shaping a sustainable, resilient energy future, reducing carbon emissions, supporting energy resilience, and making sure the benefits stay in the community where they're generated.
About the project
The Solar Roofs portfolio
TEC's "Solar Roofs" portfolio spans schools, local businesses and even the area's swimming pool, generating clean, discounted power for the buildings that host it. At Carbeile Junior School in Torpoint, headteacher Pete Hamlyn credits the panels with saving 50 tonnes of CO2 to date and giving pupils a daily, visible example of renewable energy in action, while the community benefit contribution has gone straight into the school's Hardship Fund.
The portfolio was originally built with the help of a £118,000 Community Solar Seed Loan from local investors and a further £285,000 loan from Cornwall's Low Carbon Society, alongside grant support from Devon County Council, the Regen Accelerator Programme, and a £20,000 Rural Community Energy Fund grant. In 2020, TEC launched a Community Solar Share Offer to repay those loans and bring the portfolio into full community ownership — and raised £322,000 in a matter of weeks.
Energy advice on the doorstep
Generation is only half of TEC's work. It also runs a fuel poverty and domestic energy advice service, sending retrofit energy advisors out to visit households across the Tamar Valley free of charge. In an area where local people spend an estimated £16,000,000 a year heating and powering their homes, that advice can make a real difference to a family's bills — and their comfort.
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327kW of community-owned solar PV installed
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£322,000 raised through a single community share offer
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£20,000 Rural Community Energy Fund grant secured
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Free energy advice delivered directly to households across the region
It's a model built on trust — local people, local buildings, and local reinvestment — and it's exactly the kind of grassroots resilience that community energy is all about.