The greenest unit of energy is the one you never needed.
- Andrew Bannister
- Jun 8
- 2 min read
Stop asking “wind or solar?” Start asking “what does this place have?”
Decentralisation Pt2. Energy.
The decentralisation conversation has collapsed into two options — panels on the roof,
turbine on the hill.
It’s a poverty of imagination, and it’s costing communities the energy
that’s already under their feet.
Every location has an energy signature. Read it properly and the options multiply:
→ A fast stream or a weir on an old mill site? Micro-hydro runs day and night, season after
season — the firm baseload that solar can never be.
→ A farm, a food processor, a forestry operation nearby? Biomass and anaerobic digestion
turn waste streams into heat and power, and into a revenue line for the business producing
the waste.
→ A wastewater works, a sewer main, a river? Water-to-energy and heat recovery from
effluent and flowing water are real, proven, and almost completely overlooked.
→ A disused mine, a deep borehole, a south-facing slope? Ground-source and geothermal
potential sits beneath far more sites than anyone surveys for.
→ An industrial estate throwing off waste heat? That’s a district heating network waiting for
someone to connect it.
And generation is only half the story. "The greenest unit of energy is the one you never
needed"
Cutting transmission distance saves around a tenth — but deep retrofit, fabric-first
insulation, shared local maintenance crews, and less travel for work and repair can save far
more, and keep the money circulating locally.
The point isn’t a national template. It’s that every community can survey its own ground, its
own water, its own waste and its own working day — and find a combination nobody handed
them.
Decentralisation isn’t a product you buy. It’s a question you ask of your own place.
Next in this series: how individuals and small community groups can be genuinely inventive
about selling surplus back — in ways the grid hasn’t even imagined yet.
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