Post by account_disabled on Feb 25, 2024 3:43:59 GMT -2
The climate crisis, the energy crisis in Europe and rising energy bills are inspiring many people to rethink where their energy comes from and imagine possible alternatives for their energy needs. A couple of London artists and filmmakers focus on the street where they live.
Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn live in a narrow brick house on Lynmouth Road in the Walthamstow neighborhood of northeast London and have begun transforming their street into a solar power station . Their power plant project is intended to help many of their neighbors transition from relying on fossil fuel power plants to generate their electricity to solar energy through a series of local actions.
POWER is a 'show and make' project building a solar power station on the rooftops (streets, schools, community buildings) of North East London through the enactment of a grassroots Green New Deal: working with art and infrastructure to address the interrelated climate and energy. It begins on a street as a template and provocation, literally building POWER and possib C Level Executive List ility from the ground up,” PODER’s website states.
Powell and Edelstyn were first inspired to convert their street, which is dotted with window signs reading "Power Plant," into a solar power station during the pandemic.
“We had been very busy making a film about where money comes from and why everyone is so deeply in debt (aside from the banks that create the money, that make so much profit – go figure!). And what we learned was that the way our financial system works is the key that is driving climate chaos,” Edelstyn said in an email.
“Banks are not as incentivized to lend to green projects as they are to more profitable schemes, no matter how destructive. So we started to think that our next project would incorporate what we had learned, and we have developed a 'thinking by doing' approach, so we thought: 'let's install a renewable energy station on our street and document the journey.' ”
Two books in particular, The Case for the Green New Deal and People's Power , inspired Powell and Edelstyn, according to The Guardian. In her argument for a fairer financial system and a decarbonized world, The Case for the Green New Deal author Ann Pettifor used the phrase “Every building is a power plant,” which struck a chord with the couple.
They wondered if they could turn their street into an electrical grid by connecting the houses.
“We experienced lockdown like everyone else and saw mutual aid groups emerge. As the system we had all taken for granted went into what seemed like an overnight turnaround, we saw neighbors helping each other and began to see that change should start at our doorsteps. “So, taking all this mutual aid to a new level, we started thinking, let's see if we can turn our street into a decentralized power plant, and relocate the power and agency to act right here on our doorstep,” Edelstyn said.
Edelstyn said it was Powell who inspired him to follow through with his original idea and make it a reality.
“Hilary Powell was one of those girls who used to run home and make badges, membership papers and registrations when her friends said they wanted to have a gang. She was always an implementer of ideas, someone who was capable of not only conceiving an idea, but also carrying it out. She has largely been the person who has believed in the possibilities of actually achieving the goals we set for ourselves. At times I have found myself struggling to believe that we can do it, but her determination has been unwavering,” Edelstyn said.
The original plan was for the entire street to have free electricity under cooperative management, The Guardian reported. However, this turned out to not be possible because not everyone owned their roofs. Still, almost half of the residences on Lynmouth Road ( homes) are involved in the power station project.
The research Powell and Edelstyn did to determine the knowledge, manpower and cost it would take to make a project like theirs a reality was a combination of consulting with authorities and sharing what they had learned.
“We set up a membership site and started doing Zoom calls with experts, and shared all the findings early on with our members. If they had questions or concerns, we would simply find a relevant expert, schedule a Zoom meeting with them, and invite our members to the call, and everyone would ask questions and get to the bottom of the problem. Then, if there were later things to discuss, we would all get together and have a “power hour” where we would do an online chat. This learning method was great as it was 'many minds' and also a distributed development method,” Edelstyn said.
The information they collected was not only useful for the initial power station project, it was added to their renewable energy knowledge file and continues to act as a database for future projects.
“All the material is still there and available for free to everyone; You could say we immersed ourselves in the world of renewable energy, we had a book club where we got authors to come and read excerpts from their books and then we had a question and answer session with the members. It has been great and we still create workshops aimed at allowing others to access the most important information and the minds that have influenced us the most in the implementation and imagination of the power plant,” Edelstyn said.
Initially, Edelstyn said he and Powell used their membership site, which had about paying members, to fund their project. With membership came access to all the information, which was also available for free, as well as his Greenback artwork and invitations to biannual cocktail parties, movie credits and “YouTube shout-outs, etc.,” Edelstyn said.
“Then we moved from membership and selling artwork to crowdfunding. We camped on our roof in November and early December while raising £, (which we did in days),” Edelstyn said. “And while we were on the roof, we heard about the terrible injustice of school funding costs, so we came up with another ambitious crowdfunder to help turn them into a powerhouse, saving money on their energy bills each year, making which left more to use in the education of our children. We raised £, for them in days.”
Edelstyn said fundraising for solar power stations is an ongoing creative process.
“I think all serious companies should continually fund themselves, the impact depends on them being well funded, so innovators should be much less afraid of money. We have developed a deep understanding of money. Bank Job, our previous film, was the first time we started printing our own cash and selling it for real money, we do that a lot now. But the best place to print cash is always your imagination. You just have to have a set of values for how you handle cash as it comes in, where you spend it, and why. But money is intrinsically important when building power plants. It must be distributed far and wide, like power itself,” Edelstyn said.
Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn live in a narrow brick house on Lynmouth Road in the Walthamstow neighborhood of northeast London and have begun transforming their street into a solar power station . Their power plant project is intended to help many of their neighbors transition from relying on fossil fuel power plants to generate their electricity to solar energy through a series of local actions.
POWER is a 'show and make' project building a solar power station on the rooftops (streets, schools, community buildings) of North East London through the enactment of a grassroots Green New Deal: working with art and infrastructure to address the interrelated climate and energy. It begins on a street as a template and provocation, literally building POWER and possib C Level Executive List ility from the ground up,” PODER’s website states.
Powell and Edelstyn were first inspired to convert their street, which is dotted with window signs reading "Power Plant," into a solar power station during the pandemic.
“We had been very busy making a film about where money comes from and why everyone is so deeply in debt (aside from the banks that create the money, that make so much profit – go figure!). And what we learned was that the way our financial system works is the key that is driving climate chaos,” Edelstyn said in an email.
“Banks are not as incentivized to lend to green projects as they are to more profitable schemes, no matter how destructive. So we started to think that our next project would incorporate what we had learned, and we have developed a 'thinking by doing' approach, so we thought: 'let's install a renewable energy station on our street and document the journey.' ”
Two books in particular, The Case for the Green New Deal and People's Power , inspired Powell and Edelstyn, according to The Guardian. In her argument for a fairer financial system and a decarbonized world, The Case for the Green New Deal author Ann Pettifor used the phrase “Every building is a power plant,” which struck a chord with the couple.
They wondered if they could turn their street into an electrical grid by connecting the houses.
“We experienced lockdown like everyone else and saw mutual aid groups emerge. As the system we had all taken for granted went into what seemed like an overnight turnaround, we saw neighbors helping each other and began to see that change should start at our doorsteps. “So, taking all this mutual aid to a new level, we started thinking, let's see if we can turn our street into a decentralized power plant, and relocate the power and agency to act right here on our doorstep,” Edelstyn said.
Edelstyn said it was Powell who inspired him to follow through with his original idea and make it a reality.
“Hilary Powell was one of those girls who used to run home and make badges, membership papers and registrations when her friends said they wanted to have a gang. She was always an implementer of ideas, someone who was capable of not only conceiving an idea, but also carrying it out. She has largely been the person who has believed in the possibilities of actually achieving the goals we set for ourselves. At times I have found myself struggling to believe that we can do it, but her determination has been unwavering,” Edelstyn said.
The original plan was for the entire street to have free electricity under cooperative management, The Guardian reported. However, this turned out to not be possible because not everyone owned their roofs. Still, almost half of the residences on Lynmouth Road ( homes) are involved in the power station project.
The research Powell and Edelstyn did to determine the knowledge, manpower and cost it would take to make a project like theirs a reality was a combination of consulting with authorities and sharing what they had learned.
“We set up a membership site and started doing Zoom calls with experts, and shared all the findings early on with our members. If they had questions or concerns, we would simply find a relevant expert, schedule a Zoom meeting with them, and invite our members to the call, and everyone would ask questions and get to the bottom of the problem. Then, if there were later things to discuss, we would all get together and have a “power hour” where we would do an online chat. This learning method was great as it was 'many minds' and also a distributed development method,” Edelstyn said.
The information they collected was not only useful for the initial power station project, it was added to their renewable energy knowledge file and continues to act as a database for future projects.
“All the material is still there and available for free to everyone; You could say we immersed ourselves in the world of renewable energy, we had a book club where we got authors to come and read excerpts from their books and then we had a question and answer session with the members. It has been great and we still create workshops aimed at allowing others to access the most important information and the minds that have influenced us the most in the implementation and imagination of the power plant,” Edelstyn said.
Initially, Edelstyn said he and Powell used their membership site, which had about paying members, to fund their project. With membership came access to all the information, which was also available for free, as well as his Greenback artwork and invitations to biannual cocktail parties, movie credits and “YouTube shout-outs, etc.,” Edelstyn said.
“Then we moved from membership and selling artwork to crowdfunding. We camped on our roof in November and early December while raising £, (which we did in days),” Edelstyn said. “And while we were on the roof, we heard about the terrible injustice of school funding costs, so we came up with another ambitious crowdfunder to help turn them into a powerhouse, saving money on their energy bills each year, making which left more to use in the education of our children. We raised £, for them in days.”
Edelstyn said fundraising for solar power stations is an ongoing creative process.
“I think all serious companies should continually fund themselves, the impact depends on them being well funded, so innovators should be much less afraid of money. We have developed a deep understanding of money. Bank Job, our previous film, was the first time we started printing our own cash and selling it for real money, we do that a lot now. But the best place to print cash is always your imagination. You just have to have a set of values for how you handle cash as it comes in, where you spend it, and why. But money is intrinsically important when building power plants. It must be distributed far and wide, like power itself,” Edelstyn said.