Energise Buckinghamshire

You will be provided with a 5kW solar array to supply free energy during the day, and a 16kW battery of which you will be able to use 5kW. The remaining battery capacity (11kW) will be controlled and optimised by Buckinghamshire Community Energy to provide flexibility services to the Grid and to provide a return to investors.

Buckinghamshire Community Energy will own, control and maintain the equipment. However, this does not constitute a lease or rental of your roof. It is more like a broadband subscription, where the supplier provides cabling and routers to you for the duration of your service contract, and you must return the equipment to them if you cancel the agreement.

This service is for homeowners who intend to live in their home and use the solar and home battery system for at least the next five years.

If you are not happy with this commitment, or if you know you will be moving house within five years, please do not sign up for Energise Buckinghamshire as this presents an additional cost and risk to the project if your buyer does not want to retain the system.

If you need to repair your roof or have other reasonable requirements for us to remove the system, we will do so – please see the Terms and Conditions of the Customer Service Agreement (you will get this with your Proposal from Energise Buckinghamshire if your application is successful) for circumstances under which we will remove the system at your request and at no cost to you.

However, if you know you need to repair your roof in the next five years, why not talk to us about getting inline solar panels as part of your roof repairs? It will save you money on tiles!

If you move house, we ask that you connect us with your house buyer so that we can transfer the contract to them, if they are willing. If they are not willing, we will remove the system.

After 20 years, the system can be removed by us, or you (or whoever lives in your house after that time!) can opt to keep it and use it for free for the rest of its useful life.

If you need to repair your roof or have other reasonable requirements for us to remove the system, we will do so – please see the Terms and Conditions of the Customer Service Agreement (you will get this with your Proposal from Energise Buckinghamshire if your application is successful) for circumstances under which we will remove the system at your request and at no cost to you.

However, if you already know you need to repair your roof in the next five years, why not talk to us about getting inline solar panels as part of your roof repairs? It will save you money on tiles!

The Customer Service Agreement will be a long-term commitment of up to 20 years between Buckinghamshire Community Energy and you as an Energise Buckinghamshire homeowner. However, the monthly payment will not go up without discussion with you as the “customer” beforehand (for example, if you increase your energy use and need to use more of the battery storage to save money), and it may go down during the lifetime of the system.

It will end after 20 years and you, or whoever owns your house, will have the option to take the system over, own it and maintain it, using the energy it generates or provides free of charge for the remaining life of the system.

The intention is to provide an asset which saves you money on energy and adds value to your home by cutting running costs over the long-term.

Buckinghamshire Community Energy is responsible for keeping the system working. We will monitor the systems on a monthly basis, but if you notice that it is not generating or there is a problem with the battery providing power, then we will expect you to notify us. If we notice it first, then we will notify you and provide a timescale for diagnosis of the problem and repair.

If it stops working and we cannot get it repaired within a month, then we will waive your monthly payment until it is up and running again.

If there is a wholesale failure of the system and the whole thing needs to be replaced, we will tell you what the schedule is for replacement, and will waive payments until you have access to the solar and battery power again.

We will ask you to provide us with access to your half hourly data from your energy supplier and then we will model your likely savings with the solar and battery system we are providing. An example of the modelling is here. This is for an average 4-bedroom, 4-person family home. The modelling shows that the electricity bill is likely to be around £1,200 a year, but with the solar and battery, that would come down to around £15 a year. So even with a monthly payment to BCE for the use of the solar and battery of £60 a month, this family would save around £500 a year. Please note though that this model assumes that you switch to the optimal tariff for your home, and advice on doing this can be provided by our partner Below Zero Energy as part of our service.

We are also currently working on other options because not all tariffs are still available (due to the Iran War and energy market volatility), however, we will agree a monthly payment with you as part of the Customer Service Agreement and that will only change if your energy use within the home changes due to adding an air source heat pump, EV or other electricity-demanding apparatus. At that point, we can discuss how to offer you the best option for your new usage profile.