GREEN-minded town councillors are keen to join a local renewable energy club in a bid to reduce their carbon footprint.

Totnes Town Council is considering signing up to a scheme aimed at empowering the community to develop and control its own renewable energy supplies.

Councillors have are re-considering signing up to the energy club run by Totnes Renewable Energy Society (TRESOC) after the society agreed to underwrite any losses that may be incurred by switching energy suppliers.

They previously turned down the offer fearing switching providers could result in higher energy costs.

Mayor Cllr Emily Price explained: “We have been talking to TRESOC about switching our energy use to the community energy share programme that they have.

“The last time it came to the council we voted not to because we didn’t have enough information about what the cost implications were, and we felt as a public body with public money we couldn’t go for it without knowing.

“TRESOC have now provided us with some figures and while they can’t guarantee those figures they have verbally committed to underwriting this - that is to say if it did turn out to be more expensive to go with them, they would make up the difference so we wouldn’t suffer a loss.”

Cllr Ben Piper said TRESOC receive grant funding to underwrite such things, adding: “It’s not just their word.”

Cllr Jacqi Hodgson said joining the scheme would be a “good move forward” for the council.

“We’ve got the solar panels on the civic hall roof and the proposal from TRESOC is that we can join the local energy club.

“One of the big problems in this area for renewable energy is you can’t put any more renewable energy into the system because the network grid at Hinckley C is not yet completed - so we have a problem.

“But what we can do as a big producer at the civic hall is share that renewable energy with some people in South Street so it builds resilience and everybody’s costs can come down.

“But what we needed to look at with this was that we didn’t lose money on what we normally get as our feed-in tariff from the civic hall.

“It’s taking quite a risky step in a certain way because it’s new, but certainly TRESOC and others have looked at this quite carefully so I think it’s pretty secure. It’s being underwritten anyway but it’s a good move forward for us.”

Town clerk Catherine Marlton said TRESOC had put a new offer on the table – that the council could opt out after a year if it wished to do so.

She said: “There were two risk factors that were a problem last time. One was we absolutely couldn’t ascertain what we were moving from and to, and you can’t make that kind of financial decision with public money because, yes the residents of South Street may have benefitted but it could have been to the detriment of the other council tax payers; and the volatility of the energy market, which is still not great but it’s not quite as volatile.

“We now have this option of underwriting any loss and the new offer of us only having to be in the club for a year if it doesn’t suit for whatever reason, which wasn’t on the table at the time.”

The town council is due to make a decision at February’s full meeting.