Upper Don Community Energy

Upper Don Community Energy (UDCE) was created in November 2019, to improve knowledge and increase the amount of renewable energy available in the Upper Don area.

The organisation aims to grow a community of professionals who use energy efficient resources to help people save money on energy bills and cut their carbon emissions.

The Community Warming Project was created by Upper Don Community Energy to help people in the Upper Don area who were in fuel poverty or had certain health conditions warm their homes for free. This included helping those in the Penistone, Stocksbridge, Chapeltown and High Green areas.

A group of adults stood together cheering

It received a grant of £5,000 from South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation (SYCF) to pay salaries to those helping in the project.

The project was publicised in drop-in cafes, churches, GP surgeries, schools, libraries, food banks and via local media, leafletting and knocking on doors, explaining to clients how they would benefit from the project’s overall goal of keeping communities warm. The group also contacted Social Prescribers and Sheffield City Council. They were also able to hire a project administrator who coordinated the response and delegated resources to communities, something they would not have been able to do without this necessary funding.

 

Three women sewing at a table
The back of a woman pulling a curtain
A shelf of energy devices

Catherine Cotterill, Director for Upper Don Community Energy, said:

Community Warming has been a success due to the many hours given up by volunteers and the brilliant organisation of our Project Administrator - funded by South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation - without whom we couldn’t have supported so many residents in fuel poverty.

 

The Community Warming Project has been able to help over 60 households keep warm through winter by using professionals in the local area to complete work on people’s homes, such as providing draft excluders, placing foil behind radiators, hanging door curtains, fitting LED light bulbs, lagging pipes and adding insulation tape to windows and doors.

Even with the success of the project, UDCE still has some funds remaining from the grant given by SYCF, and with this, they are hoping to fund a temporary administrator to get the remaining resources into the community, as well as deliver talks on damp and mould prevention and maintenance.