The sixth Fuelling Manchester social takes place on Thursday 26th January at the Bulls Head pub nr Piccadilly Station.

The gathering is for all those of us involved in community renewable projects, be that: water turbine co-operatives; bio-mass and woodland management enterprises; waste-to-energy projects, solar energy collectives or those involved in community-focused.

We will be meeting at the Bulls Head Pub (on London Road in Manchester City Centre) for early evening drinks, with the first of us arriving at 6pm.

Some of the projects who have been invited include: Greater Manchester Tree Station; Torrs Hydro; Energy Savings Trust; Fairfield Materials Management; Carbon Coop;  URBED; Co-ops UK. But please feel free to pass this invite onto other community renewable projects you know of.

If you are interested in attending please get in touch or just turn up.

Chris Walsh.
On behalf of The Kindling Trust.

Jonathan Akinson
On behalf of the Carbon Coop.

Yes, Carbon Co-op is normally about selling insulation and solar panels but we’ve had so many requests that we are now offering People’s Republic of Energy posters for sale.

They are hand screen printed, A1 posters designed by Because Studio and printed by One69a.

We have a limited number available for £20 plus £3 p&p, click on the link below to order yours for Christmas! A proceeds to a good cause!

10.30-11.30am, Queen Victoria Statue, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester

A new ‘country’ will have its flag unveiled at a ceremony in Piccadilly Gardens on Wednesday at 11 a.m. The President of The People’s Republic of Energy – a radical new energy campaign – will speak to his citizens from a recycled soap-box, before his officials unfurl the brand new nation’s flag to the people of Manchester. Their mission – to place the control of the UK’s energy in the hands of its people – is the idea of the Greater Manchester Carbon Co-op who are urging Mancunians to vote for them in a major national competition.

So please come down, join us and support the campaign!

The President’s speech, soap box and flag unfurling will be found in front of the statue of Queen Victoria on Piccadilly Gardens from 10.30am on Wednesday 23rd November 2011 (we even have permission from Manchester City Council!).

The People’s Republic of Energy is Carbon Co-op’s entry into energyshare, a competition to win £100,000.

You can vote for us here: http://www.energyshare.com/voting/
Closing date is 5pm, Saturday 3rd December 2011

About the project
The energy crisis is real and upon us. Faced with rising bills, growing energy insecurity and the requirement to tackle climate change it is time to organise, educate and take action! Carbon Co-op propose The People’s Republic of Energy, a campaign to democratise, popularise and role out a low carbon renewables and retrofit programme for Greater Manchester and beyond.

Using a campaign of people’s assemblies, popular education, direct democracy, carbon literacy and energy assessment training, we will equip an army of energy ambassadors with the skills to seed local self supporting groups and gather information on household energy usage in their neighbourhoods. Ultimately we will create a series of community energy plans and use EnergyShare funds to deliver a number of eco retrofit and renewables show houses around Greater Manchester.

This project builds on four years of work from the Carbon Co-op, a Manchester-based mutual organisation created to bring street, neighbourhoods and communities together in a bulk purchasing co-operative for low carbon, household technologies. With over 300 supporters the organisation has a track record of delivering retrofit work, creating innovative new community finance models and pioneering community engagement based around renewables and energy efficiency.

In more detail
Our project is divided into four discrete stages

STAGE 1: PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY
The People’s Republic of Energy will convene a day long assembly of over 300 delegates: individuals, organisations, businesses and social landlords at a venue in Manchester. The objectives of the assembly are to educate and inform attendees through the delivery of carbon literacy work, to engage in debate and discussion on how household renewables and retrofit work could and should be delivered and to train a series of community ambassadors in the Carbon Co-op’s Whole House Assessment Profile tool.

STAGE 2: COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT
We will develop the Carbon Co-op’s Whole House Assessment tool to enable community assessors to simply and easily gather information on a household’s energy usage and process this data using an easy to use, database-driven online tool.

After the assembly volunteer community energy assessors will work in their own streets and neighbourhood, seeding satellite groups and mapping out where energy is used in homes and communities. The Carbon Co-op’s Big Red Bus will tour Greater Manchester, acting as a mobile exhibition space to host information, talks and films, supporting the work of the energy assessors. We will facilitate Carbon Co-op workshops in these satellite areas, bringing friends and neighbours together in order to understand current energy usage and how this could be reduced. These volunteers will use hand held tablets to input information, with data centralised via the Carbon Co-op energy database.

STAGE 3: CREATING A COMMUNITY ENERGY PLAN FOR GREATER MANCHESTER
At a second People’s Assembly, using the data collected through energy assessments and using Carbon Co-op’s community action planning workshop, we will build up a house-by-house retrofit action plan for streets and communities in Greater Manchester.

Together, assembly delegates will make decisions on where best to deploy the EnergyShare resources, which areas will provide the best return on investment and what factors to prioritise.

STAGE 4: DEPLOYING RESOURCES
Based on decisions made at the second People’s Assembly, EnergyShare funds will finance four retrofit and renewables household projects in Greater Manchester. Forming a key part of the Carbon Co-op’s larger retrofit programme, these homes will act as eco-show homes, showcasing the latest energy saving technologies and hosting regular open days to inspire other households and communities.

Information from the assessments and retrofit work will help build and develop the Carbon Co-op model and Green Deal Pilot. Data will be used to inform the Greater Manchester Retrofit role out and build a housing archetypes pattern book to inform future retrofit roll-out work across the city region.

The whole project will be supported via a panel of retrofit practitioners and experts, providing up to date and practical advice on the decisions being made throughout the project relating to technologies, contractors and finance.

There’s plenty of work to do retrofiting our housing stock with 1.2 million homes across Greater Manchester and a commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 48% by 2020.

Now Greater Manchester’s Low Carbon Economic Area (LCEA) have commissioned Carbon Co-op partner URBED Co-op to develop a Low Carbon Housing Retrofit Strategy. The strategy outlines how Greater Manchester aims to cut emissions from its housing stock by 55% compared to 1990 levels by 2022 and to reduce carbon emissions from existing buildings by 1.8 million tonnes.

Carbon Co-op sits on the LCEA programme board, ensuring that the voice of community, Third Sector and social enterprise is prominent in the strategy’s delivery. The strategy outlines a number of ways organisations can become involved in retrofit, from community engagement and assessment to supply chain development and finance generation. Click here to view the draft strategy, the consultation is open for comments until 4th November 2011.

Carbon Co-op’s bid for the £100,000 EnergyShare competition is entitled ‘People’s Republic of Energy’, a campaign to democratise, popularise and roll out community-driven, low carbon development in Greater Manchester.

If successful, the project would see a series of People’s Assemblies, community assessments and retrofit pilots. This work would feed into our wider project to develop a community-driven green deal model.

Our bid was submitted on Friday 30th September 2011  and we’ll find out soon whether we’ve been shortlisted. If we have been there will be a further public vote.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far, you can add your support here: http://www.energyshare.com/users/CarbonCoop/

On Saturday 18th September 2011, Carbon Co-op spoke at a conference in Manchester on Co-operative Councils. Organised by Kevin Peel and held at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, the day looked at how local authorities can use co-operative and mutual models, values and principles to deliver better services and put people in control.

Over 80 Councillors from more than 30 local authorities attended, with representation from all over the UK. Speakers included Oldham MBC Leader Jim McMahon, Neil McInroy of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and Manchester City Council Leader Sir Richard Leese.

Carbon Co-op’s presentation from project manager Jonathan Atkinson outlined our work on engaging communities in renewables and the Green Deal. It highlighted how local authorities can use community owned and run organisations to involve residents in the low carbon transition.