Key Findings

Riding Sunbeams can help Network Rail fulfil its 4Cs business objectives (cost reduction, carbon reduction, capacity increase and customer satisfaction), its environmental objectives and its social objectives by connecting communities and commuters through share ownership of low-carbon generation assets developed by local social enterprises (which together form the 5Cs):

• Cost reduction – For the same or a lower price as Network Rail currently procures grid electricity, Riding sunbeams can deliver renewable, low-carbon electricity which entails social and environmental value, thereby reducing overall costs
• Carbon reduction – Riding Sunbeams’ direct-wire renewable electricity supply is the lowest carbon option available to Network Rail. Purchasing Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGOs) is the first step towards decarbonising and diversifying Network Rail’s electricity supply, but procuring renewable energy through PPAs and direct-wire is necessary for full decarbonisation.
• Capacity increase – Riding Sunbeams can provide additional direct-wire electricity supply in areas of network squeeze. Such areas are characterised by technical constraints to the amount of electricity that can be supplied through transmission and distribution networks. By supplying electricity directly into substations, capacity can be increased without costly transmission and distribution network upgrades.
• Customer satisfaction – Riding Sunbeams intends to open share ownership of the individual community solar traction projects to the public, and especially to rail commuters, so that they will have a share in the services that will be partially powered by community and commuter co-owned generation capacity.
• Connecting communities – By enabling local people and commuters to own and benefit from the clean energy powering trains, Riding Sunbeams can help Network Rail create social value through “connecting communities through better use of railway assets”. Community benefit funds also allow community groups to help address fuel and mobility poverty.

The combined business, social and environmental benefits that Riding Sunbeams can provide to Network Rail are as follows:

• Riding Sunbeams provides the first route-to-market for direct-wire PPAs and the technical, commercial and legal feasibility of the pilot sites will help guide Network Rail’s lowcarbon trajectory.
• Riding Sunbeams can deliver and report social and environmental value creation along its community energy supply chain to help Network Rail fulfil their social and environmental obligations.
• Through Network Rail’s IMPACT Tool, such social impact data can be consistently collected, reported and monetised. Qualitative impacts can be measured using a Social Value Maturity Matrix.
• Engaging in an Innovation Partnership with Riding Sunbeams ensures that this unique and fully developed product, as demonstrated by Riding Sunbeams at Aldershot, is captured by Network Rail to help inform its principles of procurement.

In addition to the zero-carbon electricity that Network Rail can procure from Riding Sunbeams’ community energy organizations, the social and environmental impact inherent in their community approach does not require capital investment on behalf of Network Rail. Such value creation is therefore both outsourced and additional from Network Rail’s perspective, and directly linked to their key social and environmental performance indicators.