Most solar installations have one beneficiary; the building owner pays less for their energy. However, this model can be limited.
Repowering London has a different model. They raise capital from local investors, like residents, community members, and people who live down the road from the school in question, who buy into a community energy co-op. That co-op funds the solar installation. The school buys the electricity it generates at a rate below what it would pay the grid. The revenue from those sales pays investors their returns. Whatever is left goes into a community fund, controlled by the investors themselves, spent on local projects.
The solar panel on the school roof is doing three things at once: cutting the school’s energy bill, generating a return for local investors, and funding youth clubs and community gardens in the streets around it. Carbon3 installs the panels. That is where we come in, and getting the installation right is what makes everything else work.
The White City project
Jack Tizard School in White City, Hammersmith and Fulham, is a good illustration of how the model operates in practice. 274 solar panels on the school roof, funded by 100 local investors who between them raised £106,500 through Hammersmith and Fulham Community Energy. The school now saves around £2,000 a year on energy bills, which is money that goes directly to supporting pupils with complex learning needs. After investor returns are paid, the surplus creates a £10,500 community fund for local projects, with all investors holding voting rights on how it is spent.
The project drew national attention when the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband visited the site in June 2025 and described it as a model for community-led renewable energy across the UK. Francesca Smith, headteacher at Jack Tizard, called it an innovative approach to renewable energy in schools that the school was proud to pioneer.
Carbon3 installed the system. The 274 panels on that roof are generating the electricity that makes the rest of the model function.
Nine schools and counting
Jack Tizard is one of nine schools Carbon3 has now installed in partnership with Repowering London, working across multiple London boroughs and community energy co-ops. Each project follows the same structure, but each site has its own conditions, its own programme constraints, and its own set of variables that require adapting to.
Another school, Plashet School in Newham, also had 143.55kWp of solar installed using this community funding. Damien Osman, School Business Manager at Plashet, had this to say:
“In 2025 Carbon 3 installed a large number of photovoltaic panels in our premises, in partnership with Repowering London. Whilst this installation has undoubtedly helped the school on its decarbonisation journey, the quality, cooperation and conduct of Carbon 3’s engineers and support staff stood out significantly. Working at height and on occasion on a live school site, their management of health and safety issues was excellent. I would not hesitate to recommend the company.”
School roofs are not straightforward. They carry plant and services, they have structural considerations that vary building by building, and the work has to happen around a school calendar that does not move to accommodate an installation programme. Access windows are narrow. Coordinating with site teams, caretakers, and headteachers while keeping to a programme that also has to satisfy investors and a community energy organisation with its own reporting obligations requires a specific kind of project management.
Repowering London also operate a model where transparency is important. Community investors need to understand what has been installed, what it is expected to generate, and how performance will be tracked. That means the design and yield modelling that Carbon3 produces for each site has to be accurate and clearly communicated.
What the partnership required
Community energy projects do not run to the same programme as commercial installations. Planning processes involve councils, schools, and investors simultaneously. Henrietta Dale, Low Carbon Development Programme Manager at Repowering London:
“Carbon3 has been a trusted and flexible partner for our community energy work. They took time to understand how our model works, brought high-quality design and delivery, and kept everything transparent and fair. When timelines or site conditions changed, they adapted and still delivered excellent work. With Carbon3 we’re confident in the generation outcomes, the community impact and the long-term sustainability of our installations.”
Flexibility is what helps Carbon3 provide the best installations for Repowering London. Nine schools across multiple boroughs, community co-ops at different stages of maturity, and funding rounds that close on their own schedule. Carbon3’s in-house design and installation teams handled each site directly, with no subcontractor chain to coordinate, no gaps between the survey and the people doing the work.
What the money actually does
The community fund that Repowering London’s model generates is not a gesture. At Hammersmith and Fulham, £10,500 goes back into the local area annually, governed by the people who funded the system. At each of the nine schools the surplus from solar sales on a school roof funds something in the community around it, decided by the community itself.
That only works if the system generates what it was designed to generate. Yield modelling that overpromises, or an installation that underperforms because corners were cut on design, damages the returns, erodes the community fund, and undermines investor confidence in a model that depends on trust. The nine systems Carbon3 has installed for Repowering London are generating what they were designed to generate, for up to 30 years, giving investors and schools alike peace of mind.
Contact us if you’d like to get solar on your educational estate without capital outlay.
