Bath and West Community Energy

Pete has worked in sustainable energy for 40 years and was co-founder of BWCE. He was CEO at the Centre for Sustainable Energy in Bristol, until resigning in 2002 due to family illness. He is Interim Chair of Community Energy England and co-chair of a ministerial advisory group on community energy.

Alex is responsible for strengthening BWCE’s operational systems and processes. She has a decade of operations experience, managing complex projects for charitable and commercial organisations, and has experience in education, working in partnership with universities, embassies and cultural organisations

Ali Akbar has developed solar PV internationally and in the UK., working on projects ranging from small scale solar rooftops to utility scale solar and battery storage. He’s currently Technical Manager at Luminous Energy specialising in system design, construction management and financial assessment.

Barney is the Asset Management Director for Octopus Renewables’ 1 GW Solar portfolio, having spent nearly 14 years in the clean tech sector. He previously worked as Portfolio Director at Oxford Capital, overseeing £350M of investments in solar, anaerobic digestion and grid response.

Chris has over 30 years' experience of working on renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate policy and carbon reduction. He has led climate action in local government and held senior commercial roles in heat pumps, home retrofit, and technical, policy, economic and co-operatives consultancy.

Louise has 30 years’ experience in public relations and marketing communications with a focus on renewables supply and generation. She is Head of External Affairs at Thrive Renewables, a renewable energy investment company which owns and operates a portfolio of onshore wind, hydro and battery storage projects across the UK.

Matt provides strategic and operational management support to solar farm owners, asset managers and O&M providers through his business Harness Energy Consulting. His clients own, operate and develop around 5000 MW of solar farms and battery storage facilities.

Rupert is a finance professional, business mentor and private investor in start-up/scale up technology companies – many of which are pioneering examples of the positive environmental change being initiated by the private sector.

Samantha is a strategy consultant with over 20 years of experience. She currently works with local governments, energy retailers, and cleantech startups advising on decarbonisation and energy strategies. Samantha is also a trustee of charity One Home.

Sara leads on BWCE’s new business development. She has 13 years local government experience around climate initiatives and planning policies on renewable energy and net zero buildings and worked in community organising and environmental and consumer advocacy in the USA.

Sonya is a Partner with Spencer West solicitors; a non-executive director at Regen; a director of Avalon Community Energy, Isles of Scilly Community Venture and Somerset Climate Action Network and Trustee of One Home and Centre for Alternative Technology, with 20 years’ experience of energy issues.