‘This is not the domain of woolly, Leftie hippies.” Mark Kenber, the chief executive of Mongoose Energy, is on a mission to dispel the myths surrounding those who are preparing to go “off grid”.

The idea of community energy schemes may conjure images of anti-capitalist communes or survivalists, but the truth has far more to do with infrastructure financing, bond issuances and share offerings.

Mongoose Energy takes a start-to-finish approach to helping set up community energy schemes across the country, and expects demand for the schemes to balloon in the years ahead.

The tipping point is the collapse in renewable energy costs. As renewable energy projects prepare to shrug off the need for subsidies and the costs of batteries continue to fall, communities will be able to drive forward investment in cheaper energy sources and reap the benefits through lower bills. To date the Mongoose team has helped to set up 80MW worth of capacity – of which most is solar power – to help communities take control of their own energy.

“It’s about people acting with their money and their feet to have a stake in their local economy,” says Kenber.

The “decentralisation” of energy generation through small, local projects could play a major role in cutting the need for expensive investments in giant power plants, international transmission cables and the steep handouts paid to back-up generators. It follows the example set internationally where community schemes have thrived in Germany, Scandinavia and even New York.