If you are a private landowner or a business, sharenergy can also work for you. When we say ‘community’, we don’t just mean ‘public sector’.

For example, you might have a site which would be ideal for a renewable energy project: a hilltop with high winds and no near neighbours perhaps. With sharenergy you could work with local people to develop a community-owned facility on your land. The co-operative would pay you a regular rent or royalty payment for the use of your site. A public share offer can raise a lot more capital than you might be able to consider raising on your own.

This model could also apply to businesses. If you have a small business which needs heat, for example, you might consider providing some land for a combined heat and power facility: the co-operative gets the revenue from the electricity produced and you get heat at a lower cost than your current gas bill.

In some cases it makes sense for a community co-operative to own part of a project which is led by a private developer: a number of our wind co-operatives work on this model. So it’s always worth asking: if you decide to go it alone in the end that’s great (and we can probably point you to other organisations who can help you where we can’t).