Our work in solar recently went beyond land with the Greening Your Boat course, which supported over 20 boat owners at South Dock Marina, through funding from the Southwark Community Energy Fund.

Alongside practical, hands-on workshops where participants learned to design, specify and install their own off-grid solar systems—reducing reliance on fossil fuels—a marine engineer delivered a full-day session on insulation, ventilation, heating and thermal wellbeing aboard a boat.

This holistic approach addressed the year-round energy challenges of life on the water, from improving comfort and reducing damp to lowering heating costs.

The programme not only promoted energy self-sufficiency and cutting carbon emissions among the boating community, but also helped to tackle fuel poverty by reducing energy bills for live-aboard residents.

By combining renewable energy training with practical advice on energy efficiency, this initiative shows how adaptable community energy solutions can be in meeting the needs of diverse, often overlooked, off-grid populations.

Impact & Results

After a 3 day DIY training course run by Selce and funded by Southwark Community Energy Fund:

💡 13 boats installed a total of 15.66kWp of solar generating power.

💡 This will save the boaters £4,000 pounds off their shore power bills and reduce their carbon emissions by 2.5 tonnes in the first year.

💡 That is a carbon emissions saving of more than 50 tonnes over the lifetime of the panels.

💡 This emissions reduction is the equivalent of taking 32 cars off the road.