As war exposes the fragility of global energy supplies, communities are showing how clean power can be local, affordable and owned by the people who use it
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If you’d not met the man, and I asked you to picture a ‘Reg Platt’, what would spring to mind? A retired gas fitter? A dogged constable in a Hercule Poirot drama? Almost certainly not a buzzing entrepreneur, with grizzled rock star good looks, who’s driving a revolution in solar power across the rooftops of east London.
So much for nominative determinism.
His company, Emergent Energy, is breaking new ground by enabling a local authority – in this case the London borough of Hackney – to bring clean, green electricity to its council home tenants. In doing so, it’s exploiting recent changes in electricity regulations, which allow locally generated solar power to be supplied directly to nearby households.
Reg Platt’s work with Hackney council is turning social housing into a network of clean power stations. Image: Sam Bush
It works like this: Hackney commissions Emergent to install solar power on the sprawling flat roofs of its council flats. Emergent manages the resulting array as a ‘micro grid’, billing residents directly for their electricity use, and exporting surplus power – generated when local demand is low – into the National Grid. The resulting earnings means it’s possible to reduce residents’ typical overall bills by around 15%, not insignificant at a time of spiralling energy costs.
To date, Emergent has installed solar PV across 28 blocks, benefiting 800 residents. “It’s the single largest deployment in the social housing sector,” says Platt, “and the only such project that’s been delivered with zero government funding towards the capital costs. The system pays for itself.”
It appears a win-win for all concerned: residents get cheaper power, Hackney owns the assets and recoups its investment through electricity sales, and Emergent has a business model that is poised to expand across the country. As Platt points out, there are 5m flats in the UK, of which 2m are – like the ones in Hackney – social housing. Not all will be suitable for this approach, but a healthy proportion should be. It’s set to transform the prospects for bringing affordable solar power within reach of millions of Britons, a potential recognised when it won the 2025 Ashden Award for Breaking Barriers.
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