PowerShaper Community Hubs Feasibility Study

 

PowerShaper Community Hubs

Empowering Manchester’s community anchors through community-owned solar, battery storage, and energy flexibility.

Community anchor

About the Project

PowerShaper Community Hubs is an innovative feasibility project exploring a unified developer and aggregator business model for community energy.

Across Greater Manchester, community organisations provide vital services but often struggle with high energy running costs. At the same time, the local electricity grid needs more flexibility to transition to a zero-carbon future.

This project merges these two challenges into one scalable solution. We are assessing the technical and financial feasibility of installing community-owned rooftop solar and battery storage on community buildings in Constraint Management Zones (CMZ) to aggregate flexibility from these assets and generate additional income from Distribution Network Operator (DNO) flexibility tenders.

Community hubs value stacking model

Why is this needed?

Carbon Co-op has long advocated for a community-based demand flexibility model. Recent research we conducted for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and Manchester City Council (MCC) identified a significant opportunity for scaling rooftop solar across community buildings in the city.

However, mapping energy generation to local flexibility delivery at the design phase is a significant innovation. By “value-stacking”—combining the savings from solar generation, battery arbitrage, and DNO flexibility tenders (via SP ENW)—we can unlock new, flexible business models to make these installations viable while keeping the benefits within the community.

Where is it happening?

This Stage 1 feasibility project is working closely with nine community anchor organisations based in the under-served Manchester areas of Ardwick, Blackley, Longsight, and Openshaw.

These sites sit at the heart of their communities and we hope this project can help to reduce their running costs and allow them to expand their services. Our goal is to complete full technical and financial feasibility studies on at least five of these sites, paving the way for an initial phase of solar and battery installations.

Community Benefit and Ownership

At Carbon Co-op, we believe sustainable energy systems should be owned and controlled in common (Energy Commons). The PowerShaper Community Hubs project is designed with community benefit at its core:

  • Lower Running Costs: We are targeting a fixed energy rate that is 20% below the current daytime tariff for our host organisations, improving their financial resilience and allowing them to focus on delivering grassroots services.
  • Community Benefit Fund: Income generated from battery arbitrage and flexibility tenders will be used to establish a secondary community benefit fund, open to local grassroots and energy efficiency initiatives.
  • 100% Community Ownership: We are designing a 100% community ownership model, funded via a future community share issue, to ensure the assets belong to the people of Greater Manchester.

Project Details

  • Status: Stage 1 Feasibility Study (April 2026 – March 2027)
  • Funder: This project is 100% funded by a grant from the GBE Community Energy Fund (GBECF) via the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Get Involved

We are committed to sharing our open models and learning with other community energy groups. A full project case study and feasibility report will be published at the end of the project in early 2027.

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