Phoenix Energy Community grew out of thriving Low Carbon Hub community group, Thame Green Living, and has become a separately constituted Community Interest Company (CIC), to focus on developing community energy projects.

The group formed in 2023, joining together members of local environmental groups: Thame Green Living, Green Crendon, and Zero Carbon Haddenham.

Aims and vision: 

• Everyone in the three communities has an energy efficient home.  

• All organisations have energy efficient buildings, powered by locally generated renewable energy.  

• Encourage the community to be engaged and energy literate. 

• Partnership with the Renewable Thame project that offers local residents and businesses solar PV energy arrays and battery solutions with the potential of extending this to heat pumps. 

Thame Green Living was awarded a large grant from Low Carbon Hub’s Community Grants Fund to create a website for the Phoenix Energy Community project and develop communications and an engagement event. The website has launched, https://phoenixec.org.uk/ and Phoenix have carried out a successful engagement campaign, with stakeholder presentations to local Town and Parish Councils, residents’ associations and businesses.

They successfully applied for a Community Energy Fund grant from the Greater South East Net Zero Hub to carry out a Stage One Feasibility Study into how a community battery could be used alongside new or existing relatively large-scale renewable energy installations for community benefit. This could involve increasing the amount of renewable energy generated and used locally and raise funds for Phoenix Community Energy to enable energy efficiency initiatives across the community.

They held a well-attended Phoenix Energy Expo on 25 February in Long Crendon Baptist Hall, as part of their community engagement and awareness programme, and took part with Low Carbon Hub at the Chinnor Energy Expo.