By Dave Hampton, Carbon Coach

One in 25 of Good Energy’s electricity customers is also a renewable generator, so we really understand the benefits that generating your own energy can bring. Our regular guest-blogger Dave Hampton lives in Marlow, where Good Energy and Transition Town Marlow are set to start on an exciting project to get residents generating heat and power from sunlight. And that’s just the start. In this latest blog, Dave sets out his inspiring vision for the town...

Because Marlow’s Energy is its People

Marlow is, as local readers will know, a beautiful Thames-side town with plenty of good history: a bit of a ‘gem’ on the UK tourist trail, being a popular destination for US visitors. For some, Marlow has a connotation with simply messing about in boats in the summer, rowing regattas, Sir Steve Redgrave. For some it is the quintessential or quaint English architecture, cricket greens, open space, playgrounds, crazy golf and leafiness of Higginson Park.

There’s good community spirit, good schools, and people develop common bonds, through sport and through community groups. Whether they meet in Churches, or the ‘temples’ where they congregate are river banks, allotments, book clubs, playing fields, or other spaces of common interest, Marlow has a strong sense of community.

10,000 Marlow homes – £50million pounds a year - up in (invisible) smoke?

I would not be surprised if Marlow’s average energy bills are higher than UK average, which is £1400 per annum. For electricity, my guess is that the annual spend per household will vary from £200 to £2000. For heating there will be a similar range, let’s say £300 to £3000 a year.  Where are you?  Let’s guess a £1500 p.a. overall Marlow average, bearing in mind some are much lower, and some much higher.

What we spend on fuelling our cars probably ranges from £10 a week up to £100 a week or more.  Let’s hazard a guess at £1500 p.a.

Finally, holiday air travel. Let’s make a wild guess of £1000 overall average spend per home per year.  (I know some never fly, and some fly quite a lot.) 

You are of course free to use your own best guesstimates, reader, and do your own ‘back-of-an-envelope’ calculations, but I don’t think I will be far out here.

So just supposing the average annual fuel bills per household were:

• Electricity £700
• Heating £800
• Petrol £1500
• Flights £1000

then the total energy spend per Marlow home would be about £4000 per year. 

Even if this were an overestimate by 100%, even half this amount, or £2000, would be a sizeable chunk of the average Marlow household income... and a big chunk of power to waste.

And the really funny thing?

We don’t need to be paying this.  Or leaving this con-trail for the kids.

Our town could be a nett generator of energy. No, not a power station, but a highly organised and efficient network of home energy generating ‘cells’ interconnected like the internet.  Clever, new, local, renewable energy technology; not central, dirty, old fossil.

Imagine all the existing big fat (invisible) power cables, the invisible oil pipeline (steroid injection), the night-time oil tanker deliveries, and the safely buried gas mains into Marlow ALL severed and redundant.  Breaking free from the grid.  Off grid.

That’s not quite true. We’d still need an electrical cable – a smaller one - to carry the excess power – the spare that we may be able to export!  Less of an ‘umbilical cord’ of addictive dependency, and more of a ‘power accord’ of inter-dependence. 

And the people of Marlow £50 million a year richer. 
Making money selling our home-grown energy too.

We could cut our dependency on (and the fortunes we pay annually to) ‘those in power’.
This is, of course, controversial, and deeply unpopular with those currently in power and those who defend them. But we would be 500,000 empty oil drums lighter, and 300,000 tons of CO2 cleaner and more respectable.

Just like that!

Except of course it isn’t quite ‘just like that’. We’d have to work hard for it. We’d have to insulate our homes, install solar panels, build small community wind farms, small community heat and power stations (e.g. powered from sewage) and much increase our use of the bike and foot. We’d have to kick some pretty engrained ‘oil-addict’ habits.

But a High Street where most people are biking or walking could be THE proud status of the Marlow future, not a relic of the past. 

We can happily take more ‘stay-cations’ – even take one EVERY weekend of the year  – in one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world: Marlow, UK.  Luxury.

Surely the kids are worth it?

If we pulled it off it wouldn’t make one iota of difference to USA or China’s footprint, but then we can’t really force them to do what we don’t do anyway, can we?
But we can inspire them to follow our first carbon-free footsteps, can’t we?

Even if we failed, we’d still end up with lower bills, less pollution, higher house prices (for their higher energy efficiency rating), healthier kids walking more, bike lanes, less traffic congestion, a better railway, and more community spirit in the park in the summer, instead of a mass exodus of Marlow people for the Maldives (by then underwater).