TECs has a unique way of supporting you with your Energy project, this is different from many commercial organisations operating in this area. Our support can be installing renewable generation plant, undertaking measures to save on your energy consumption or raising awareness about how you generate and consume Energy.
There has already been a step change in the level of awareness of the impact of our economic and social activities. Whether this impact is Climate, Ecological or even the most recent pandemic related, Energy is a common factor in all of these. TECs is focused on providing practical solutions to those organisations and individuals who want to minimise the adverse impact from their Energy use. We explain what options are available for your circumstances, rather than offering standard solutions.
Below you can read how we are set up and how we operate. If you are interested in having that conversation, please do contact us.
Teign Energy Communities (TECs) is the Community Benefit Society (CBS), owned and operated by its Members. We provide the financial and legal framework for organisations within Teignbridge to deliver their own local Renewable Energy / Energy Saving projects. These local organisations (called Stakeholders) can be community groups, social enterprises, health/education trusts, councils, businesses and any group that shares the vision, aims and objectives of TECs.
As a Community Energy Society we want to work with others groups and organisations in Teignbridge to help them realise their Energy generation/saving projects. TECs can provide the know-how and access to information on technology, process, legal and financial matters.
TECs will partner with Stakeholders who have Renewable Energy/Energy Saving plans they wish to realise. We can provide support and advice as well as implementation of all aspects of such projects including finance and ongoing operations and maintenance.
The approach we take is one of benefit/risk sharing with our Stakeholders. We want you, the stakeholder, to be part of the process of realising your chosen project(s) so that you not only benefit economically/environmentally, but also engage more in your energy use.
Together with our Stakeholder we will assess the viability of a project to ensure that it meets TECs’ objectives and criteria as well as those of the Stakeholder. TECs’ Assessment Criteria are available as part of our published Documents.
A Financial Model and Terms of Agreement will be developed jointly. This will be an ‘open book’ process where it is in both parties interest to share risk and reward equitably.
The TECs Board is responsible for all commercial decisions, legal agreements and financial commitments. As a Community Benefit Society the Board will also take advice and views from its supporters, Stakeholders and Members in its decision making process.
Installers and service providers used by TECs are equally important. This is why we maintain a list preferred local providers that share in our vision and way of working within the community.
More information on how TECs works can be found in our Publicity & Marketing Strategy available as part of our published Documents.
TECs, with support from its Stakeholder organisations, will raise funds through community shares to cover costs of Renewable Energy/Energy Saving projects proposed by Stakeholders. Larger projects may need to be financed earlier/faster than raising funds from Shares. TECs has access to short-term private finance which it can call on from Members to bridge this time gap.
Any project will have to be both financially and environmentally viable. We are very keen that as much of the energy as possible generated by our Renewable installations is consumed on site. The project will also need to be in line with TECs’ vision, aims and objectives. Appropriate commercial agreements with these organisations for Renewable and Energy Saving technologies will be negotiated to achieve an equitable benefit/risk sharing arrangement.
The initiative was launched by Transition Newton Abbot CIC in November 2014. The Energy Group of TNA had already delivered several successful energy-saving projects in the local area, so we had a good track record and good local contacts.
We received seed funding (15th Dec, for £4,000 from Devon County Council and the Esmee Fairbairn foundation delivered by Regen SW) to implement phase-1 of the project which was completed in July 2015. This has established our vision, aims and objectives, submitted TECs and its founder Directors for registration with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and established a team to deliver our Business Plan in line with the processes we have defined in this phase.
Special mention must be made for the tireless energy, support and organisation from Jodie Giles, Project Manager for Communities at Regen SW.
Having been registered with the FCA (CBS number 7210) in September 2015, we then embarked on phase-2 with support from Teign Housing, Templer Academy Schools Trust, Two Valleys Community Energy, Transition Newton Abbot, The Avenue Church and Teignbridge District Council. This phase has focused on delivering our first successful installation (~50kWp PV) at Teign School in Kingsteignton.
We secured further grant funding (£20k) to evaluate the feasibility of a number of post-Feed-in-Tariff renewable projects in the district. Between 2017 and 2020 TECs identified several larger rooftop PV projects, progressing 3 of these to commercial/power-purchase agreement stage. UInfortunately we were unable to build these for a variety of reasons, mainly related to insurmountable regulatory and economic difficulties within the Stakeholder organisations involved.
Since 2017 TECs has also focused on supporting its Members with Energy assessment and advice. We have developed a number of processes and built/purchased monitoring tools to help calculate Energy consumption and provide independent advice on options for Members to make changes.