Home Insulation Training:
Fully funded online training – ‘Introduction to home insulation’
There are 6 modules consisting of a roughly 10 minute YouTube video to watch,
then a multi-choice test at the end of each, so about 1.5 hours in total.
If you register for these, we’d love to hear how you get on. Do send your feedback to energy@ssb.org.uk.
Survey of EPCs in South Brent
An Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is one way of gauging how our homes operate in terms of energy efficiency – how costly they will be to run, and how much CO2 they give out.
SSB always likes to engage with young people, so we were particularly delighted to involve a Duke of Edinburgh’s Silver Award Candidate in the Energy Team’s EPC project. Chris has just finished a very busy year taking GCSEs at Ivybridge Community College, but he still found time to gather and begin to analyse EPC information for all those households in South Brent Parish that have EPCs in place.
EPC information is in the public domain, but with the work Chris is undertaking, we hope to be able to get a much clearer idea of how our homes are performing overall; what we might need to do to make them more energy efficient, and also find some specific examples from which we can learn. For example, how did that house that was a very low ‘G’ rated home a few years ago become the excellent ‘A’ rated energy-efficient home it is today? What ‘retrofit’ actions were undertaken to bring that change about? And – if we can’t afford to do the work ourselves – what grants might be available?
Watch this space for more information as the EPC project progresses.
NB. The Energy Futures Questionnaire has now closed.
South Hams Energy Assembly
Our friends at Sustainable South Hams and South Dartmoor Community Energy are hosting the 2025 South Hams Energy Assembly at Kingsbridge Community College on Saturday 18th October.
The event aims to connect, support and inspire action to accelerate the transition to energy resilience in the South Hams.
We are bringing together community organisations, councillors, rural businesses, housing associations and other local decision makers and interested individuals, together with experts from local energy organisations, installers and related companies.
For further information please go to South Hams Energy Assembly.
South Brent Primary School – Renewable Energy Generation
Thanks to a generous donation from South Brent Community Energy Society, the Primary School in South Brent is now proudly able to generate a proportion of its own electricity. Facilitated by Sustainable South Brent, the 17kW array was installed in August by SunGift. It’s an ‘integrated’ system which embeds the solar panels in line with – rather than sitting above – the roof tiles, giving a sleeker appearance and offering less resistance to the winds that whistle through.
An indoor display panel will give the children a chance to see, minute-by-minute, how much electricity is being produced, how much the system has generated in total, and how many tonnes of CO2 haven’t been produced by using this renewable energy generation. The system is predicted to save the school several thousand pounds per year on their electricity bill. All of which will give the children plenty of opportunities for doing some meaningful, real-life mathematical calculations.
The image below, taken on a dark and dreary day, shows that – even when it’s raining – the photovoltaic panels do as their name suggests and respond to even low-levels of available light. Just imagine what they can do when the sun is shining.
Contact energy@ssb.org.uk
If you have any questions for the Energy Team, or would like to offer your time in support of these and future energy initiatives, please contact Hayden on energy@ssb.org.uk
Drop-in sessions scheduled for: