Careers in Community Energy

Words from the winner:  Brighton Energy Co-op was lucky to be awarded one of the first Community Energy Fund grants from Younity in July 2020. Our application for the £2,500 was to provide paid internship opportunities within Brighton Energy for recent graduates or school leavers. We planned to offer the interns payment at the UK Living Wage rate and settled on offering 3 paid internships with 100 hours each, which included BEC topping up the budget. Having advertised the opportunity in September 2020 the first 2 interns, Maria and Pete, started working with BEC in October 2020 and we set them to work on real world mini-projects that would add value to BEC and be useful learning vehicles for them. We are also offering Maria and Pete the chance to spend time interviewing BEC directors to understand the experience and training required to run a community energy business, and also for us to provide them introductions for their next roles. We will also be offering a 3rd paid internship from February 2021 onwards and will be advertising that soon. The internship programme that we have run, thanks to Younity, has been a great success and we plan to continue working with paid interns going forward as it is a clear 'win-win' with the interns gaining invaluable experience and BEC benefitting from some fresh thinking and youthful energy!