The CHDU Development Team at Sharenergy comprises:
Ben Cannell, Community Heat Network Consultant
Ben has a background in engineering holding an MEng in Civil Engineering from the University of Bristol. He has spent the last 11 years working within the energy sector, mostly performing analyses of nuclear reactor components and developing software to design offshore wind turbines.
Ben Whittle, Development Team Manager
Ben has been working in the world of renewable energy for over 20 years.
He has worked in a range of installation businesses working with solar thermal, wind. PV, batteries, biomass, heat pumps and CHP.
For the last 5 years he worked mostly in technical advice, project feasibility and consultancy report writing. Project experience has included giving advice to UK and devolved government administrations, local authorities and collaborating on some European projects across a range of topics such as low carbon heat deployment, energy efficiency, building modelling and multi technology energy systems, EV charging and Time of Use tariffs.
Dave Green, Senior Community Energy Consultant
Dave Green is an experienced energy advisor who has worked with numerous community energy schemes. He joined Sharenergy in 2019 to support the development of new community energy schemes.
Previously Dave worked for a decade as a self employed energy advisor, assessor and trainer with clients including South Staffordshire Community Energy, the National Trust and the Central England Co-op. He was Energy Officer for the award winning Household Energy Service in Bishop’s Castle, founder Director of GDAM (a co-operative of energy advisors) a director of Midlands Energy Professionals, a director of Shrewsbury Hydro and a Training Partner with Climate KiC.
Richard Lane, Community Energy Consultant
Richard is an engineer by training and an environmentalist at heart. With a background in climate campaigning he holds an MSc Renewable Energy Systems from the University of Strathclyde and a MEng in Electronics from the University of York. He was the director of a web development company for six years and is currently the co-chair of York Community Energy which he helped to found in 2015.
Becky Oliver, Development Project Assistant
Becky previously worked for Sharenergy as an administrator, and is now part of the Development Team. Prior to this she worked in administrative and IT support in a wide range of areas including renewable energy and local government and has qualifications in statistics and computing.
Fran Hunt, Development Project Officer
Fran started out as an IT programmer, becoming a Systems Development Project Leader, working for the Automobile Association and Canon Systems. She has since worked at a number of public and charitable organisations including Shropshire Council, Small Woods Association, Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Marches Energy Agency, before joining the Sharenergy Development Team. Fran is a co-founder of Shropshire and Telford Community Energy.