Energy & Climate
Quarter of a century of change
Good Energy’s Ian McKee reflects on 25 years of pioneering renewable energy.
22 November 2024
This article first appeared in our Earth Day 2025 issue of My Green Pod Magazine, published 22 April. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox
Main image: Tongue Gil weir
Up and down the country there are green heroes who have applied the theme of this year’s Earth Day, ‘Our Power, Our Planet’, quite literally – by generating their own clean power.
Good Energy works with more than 180,000 households with solar rooftops, but there are over 2,500 who have gone a step further: they have set up larger generators from which the company buys power to supply to its customers.
Here are just five of these larger renewable energy generators that are helping to keep the lights on in a way that doesn’t cost the Earth.
Established in 1987 by Ken Oxenham and now run by his son Matthew, the Glen Lyn Gorge hydroelectric plant in Devon is one of Good Energy’s longest-running partnerships.
According to Matthew, Lynmouth, where the plant is based, ‘has an isolation to it that engenders people to do unusual things’ – and in the ‘80s, setting up a renewable electricity generator certainly was unusual.
This small-scale hydro scheme, with a capacity of 300kW, generates 1.5 million kilowatt-hours (1.5 GWh) per year.
Today the plant is also a visitor attraction that highlights the role of hydroelectricity in reducing our environmental impact.
BEC has pioneered community-led renewables projects since 2011, showing how clean power can benefit communities as well as the environment.
‘We exist to provide a benefit to the community, and a lot of our sites are right in the heart of the communities that we serve’, says founding director Andy O’Brien.
The cooperative has installed solar panels on the rooftops of 14 community buildings across Bristol, saving these important social hubs £40,000 in energy bills every year.
Its urban solar sites generate enough electricity to supply 3,000 homes, and the cooperative has channelled over £250,000 back into the local area, funding initiatives such as community centres, outdoor spaces and cafés.
Nestled in the Lake District National Park, Tongue Gill Hydro is a testament to the power of small-scale hydroelectricity.
Jo and Bev Dennison sold their dream home to fund this run-of-the river hydro scheme, which generates more than 450MWh of renewable electricity – enough to power 150 homes – every year.
The project captures rainfall from a wide area, stabilising the landscape and boosting local wildlife such as red squirrels, deer and birds.
The project blends seamlessly into the natural environment, demonstrating how renewable energy can coexist with nature.
Albourne Estate, a family-owned vineyard and winery overlooking the South Downs near Brighton, has embraced renewable energy with its impressive 159-panel solar array.
These panels generate roughly 38,000kWh each year, two-thirds of which is exported to Good Energy.
‘It’s a great feeling to know we’re not only powering our own operations through sunshine, but also generating a surplus which is contributing to the overall growth in green energy use by others’, says vineyard owner Alison Nightingale.
According to Chris Morris, Fre-energy’s technical director, ‘When you think about waste as a resource, it completely reframes the question’ – the question being, how can you run a farm in a sustainable way?
This anaerobic digestion generator takes waste from a working farm and essentially composts it, capturing gases that would otherwise be released into the environment and turning them into energy.
The process then produces fertiliser, which is used on the farm to grow crops in a fully circular model.
Good Energy’s Ian McKee reflects on 25 years of pioneering renewable energy.
One of the UK’s original purpose-led businesses will join the world’s largest gathering of B Corps at the Louder Than Words festival in September.
Good Energy provides Soil Association with ‘groundbreaking’ new clean power-matching initiative, offering game-changing levels of transparency
Good Energy played a pioneering role in bringing clean energy to UK homes – and now the supplier is making green living even easier.
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