Underserved Communities Are Reaping The Benefits Of London’s Solar Microgrids

Underserved Communities Are Reaping The Benefits Of London’s Solar Microgrids

The red-brick Frampton Park Estate, a set of five-story social housing blocks in east London, is built like many other residential complexes in the British capital. Even the lines of solar panels that cover the roofs of the estate are an increasingly common sight.

But Frampton is the flagship example of a pioneering initiative to make an equitable energy transition in the city of nearly nine million people, one where low-income residents are directly benefiting from and even supporting solar energy.

“One of the most important things for us is for this energy transition to be just,” says Sarah Young, who is cabinet member for climate change, environment and transport at Hackney Council, the local London authority that is co-running the project. “We want to make Hackney livable, for everyone, for those who are the most vulnerable.”

Often tenants of social housing are excluded from the financial benefits of solar on their roofs due to regulatory and technical issues, even though they are the ones most in need. And until recently that was the case in Hackney, where solar panels on apartment buildings could only be used to supply electricity to the grid or to light communal areas.

But in 2023, the Hackney-based company Emergent Energy succeeded in lobbying for change in regulations in the U.K. so that residents in social housing can now access the clean, affordable energy coming from their own roofs. Before the change, most of that energy was sold back to the grid, so tenants gained no direct benefit. 

“The customers can now get some of the value,” says Reg Platt, the founder and CEO.

Around 4,000 solar panels have been installed across 28 social housing blocks and three estates in Hackney, producing one megawatt of energy, the equivalent of a fifth of the blocks’ energy needs. As many as 800 residents are set to save 15 percent on bills when compared to the market rate, according to estimates by Emergent Energy.

The system, developed in partnership with Hackney Council’s energy services arm, Hackney Light and Power, works thanks to what are known as solar microgrids, semi-autonomous electricity networks supplied by the rooftop-generated solar electricity. The policy changes were largely to do with how wiring for microgrids can be used in buildings. Frampton represents the first use case in the U.K.

But while the infrastructure is in place and interest in participating is strong, residents are not obligated to take part in the project. Residents who want to sign up for Emergent Energy must have a new electricity meter installed, which usually takes a couple of hours.

“While it’s positive if people sign up, we don’t need all residents to [for the project to be viable],” says Young.

The public-private collaboration has set the project on a promising path, with Emergent able to use trusted and familiar faces from the council to engage with residents on their doorsteps about the project — in addition to letters sent by mail, public meetings and the very visible appearance of solar panels on the estate.

“The council is a trusted provider,” says Young. “We use people that residents know. These are local councilors that have been elected.”

According to Emergent Energy, the model could be scaled to the 5.4 million apartments in the U.K., including two million social housing apartments, and in turn generate as much as 6.75 gigawatts of solar energy, worth a total of £13.5 billion ($18.5 billion U.S.) in clean energy investment.

That green energy transition could also have wider benefits when it comes to energy equality.

In the U.K., over six million households are struggling to pay their energy bills. Hackney in particular is one of the nation’s most diverse boroughs, with significant numbers of elderly residents and people in energy poverty. “If we are going to make the borough livable, it has to be for everyone, taking everyone along with us, so that nobody is left behind,” says Young.

Proponents say solar microgrids can cut energy bills as well as support authorities’ climate action plans. 

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal “Affordable and Clean Energy,” one of several major goals set out in 2015, calls for “universal access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy,” including improved energy efficiency, increased renewables and further diversifying the energy mix while ensuring energy affordability for all.

Irene Calve Saborit, program manager of Energy Access Partnerships at Sustainable Energy for All, a nonprofit focusing on expanding clean energy across the world, says that microgrids could have the added benefit of boosting local and regional climate resilience, especially as climate events are becoming more extreme and frequent.

“Microgrids will be essential,” she explains. “Imagine if a big storm or hurricane destroys the centralized grid. With microgrids, you can still ensure basic electricity for households.”

In April 2025, about 55 million people in Spain and Portugal were affected by a massive blackout, one of the worst in the history of Europe, due in part to issues with the national electricity grids.

Yet Emergent argues that what sets its model apart is that the solar microgrids can thrive without the need for government subsidies. These microgrids create returns for private investors: Building owners, not tenants, bear the cost of setting one up — and recoup their money through the revenues it generates. It’s cheaper than the competition because it uses infrastructure that’s already in place.

Hackney Council has invested £2 million in the project — which it should in theory receive back in its entirety.

“We will need a government-independent route, using market-based mechanisms to finance the technology,” says Platt. “That’s extremely important. Our model can deliver vast levels of investment without government support.”

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Even so, doubts remain. Saborit says that efforts to find a working business model for solar projects in regions like Africa are ongoing. “What we have been doing until now is great,” she says. “But the model has struggled. Many projects have been unable to attract as much capital from the private sector. There’s a lot to learn.”

In the meantime, Emergent and Hackney are continuing to experiment. The council is exploring the idea of using excess electricity — which would otherwise be sent to the grid — to run EV charging points in the district, providing residents with another kind of benefit. And there is also the potential to add more technologies, such as heat pumps and energy storage, to the microgrids. 

“It’s a real test case,” says Young. “There are many lessons to be learned from the process. And we plan to take these lessons into the future.”