Who We Are

Many people have helped to get this project this far. We are a small Board of voluntary Directors supported by an expert panel of Advisors and working with a group of inspiring Partner organisations.

Alister Scott

Alister Scott

Alister Scott is the Chair of Cuckmere Community Solar.

He has lived in Berwick since 1995, lives very close to the site, and has been involved in the project since its inception.

Professionally, Alister is a Director of The One Leadership Project, which supports the people in organisations who are leading big change. Over the past 20 years, Alister’s clients have included multinational companies, charities, government departments and international organisations. Alister routinely chairs, facilitates, advises and trains Boards, teams and individual ‘catalysts’ in high-pressure and complex situations.

Ian Rogers

Ian Rogers

Ian Rogers is a director of Cuckmere Community Solar. Living in Tunbridge Wells and is a regular visitor to the South Downs, Ian has a background in engineering, the law and sustainability, and he set up the ventures arm of global consultancy Arup, which commercialises ideas for sustainable products and businesses. He was the sustainability director for Arup in the UK, Middle East and Africa for six years and has a passion for renewable energy. Ian says “Our project will embrace community ownership, biodiversity enhancement, generate significant amounts of green electricity and act as a demonstrator of how to address the climate threat in imaginative ways.”

Barney Merrett

Barney Merrett is a director of Cuckmere Community Solar and lives in Berwick. He has spent the past 15 years working in the sustainable energy sector, managing government support schemes for both large and small-scale renewables. This has enabled him to develop a detailed understanding of different types of renewable energy projects, as well as the various legislative and infrastructure requirements that underpin them.

Barney strongly believes in Cuckmere Community Solar’s aims and wants to play an active role in helping them achieve their objective, of building a community solar farm that connects straight into the rail network.

Dr Kathy Martyn

Bio coming soon

Advisors

Louisa Cilenti

Louisa Cilenti is a special advisor to Cuckmere Community Solar. She has been involved with the project since 2018, providing support initially to Riding Sunbeams to advance their first-of-kind solar traction demonstrator project and later to raise funding for the project from Thrive Renewables and Friends Provident.

Christopher Powles

Christopher Powles has been visiting the Cuckmere Valley regularly since 2012 when he and his colleagues started to develop the existing commercial solar farm adjacent to the Cuckmere Community Solar site. He has been involved in the community solar farm project from its very beginnings, as an investor and corporate adviser. Christopher says “I am inspired to assist Cuckmere Community Solar as when developing the existing solar farm we were asked not for the normal community benefit that solar farm developers generally provide but for help to develop a community owned solar farm. No other community asked this of us.”

James Richardson-Gasson

James Richardson-Gasson has been a friend of the Cuckmere Community Solar project from the outset and has assisted and advised on many aspects of the project. Having developed in excess of 180MW of solar energy projects since 2011 he sits on various advisory panels developing large scale MW renewable energy. James has a particular interest in decarbonisation, innovative and first-of-a-kind community-based renewable energy.

Dr. Dicle Kortantamer

Dr. Dicle Kortantamer is a researcher undertaking a case study of Cuckmere Community Solar.Dicle’s research is part of the Project X initiative: a large three-year ESRC funded programme of research involving a collaboration between the Cabinet Office, government departments, industry partners, the project delivery profession and a large number of universities. Dicle says “Community energy projects present significant opportunities for delivering path-breaking innovations that can accelerate our transition to a zero-carbon society. They are also likely to create local social and financial benefits such as the development of local resilience and the creation of new jobs. Using the case study of Cuckmere Community solar, we will be able to develop knowledge that can guide other communities about effective forms and practices of leadership that are required to initiate and deliver community energy projects and inform policy-makers about the ways in which they can help nurture such projects.”

Partner Organisations

Riding Sunbeams logo

Riding Sunbeams (ridingsunbeams.org) is developing the idea of powering the railways with solar energy from community solar parks like ours. We have been working with Riding Sunbeams since their inception, and we are their first full-scale project.

Riding Sunbeams and we in turn are supported by:

 

Community Energy South logo

Community Energy South, an umbrella organisation for groups like ours.

communityenergysouth.org

 

Possible logo

Possible, an innovative climate campaign group in the UK.

wearepossible.org

 

Thrive Renewables logo

Thrive Renewables, an investment organisation that connects people to renewable energy.

thriverenewables.co.uk

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