Energy

Powering the Forest:
Warmer Homes & Local Energy

Across the Forest of Dean, many of us are feeling the pinch of high energy prices and the frustration of living in draughty buildings. Whether it’s our homes, our local shops, or our community hubs, everyone deserves to be warm without it costing the earth.

At FODCAP, we believe the best solutions come from the people who know this landscape best: you. By working together to upgrade our buildings and generate our own clean, green power, we can keep our money in the local economy and protect the beauty of the Forest for the next generation.

SOLAR POwer MADE SIMPLE

Is your roof ready to work for you? Generating your own electricity is one of the best ways for small businesses, schools, community buildings and churches to take control of their energy bills. But we know it can be hard to know where to start.

Our Forest of Dean Solar PV guide takes away the guess work providing a clear, step-by-step path to getting panels on your roof for community buildings. 

WArmer, Healthier Homes

Support for your retrofit journey. "Retrofitting" is just a fancy word for making a building work better—keeping the heat in and the damp out. It’s about creating spaces that are healthier to live in and cheaper to run.

Whether you are looking to improve your own home or a community building, we’ve gathered the best local resources to help you get started on our retrofit resources page. 

A man installing a window in a room with white walls and a radiator below the window. The man is wearing a plaid shirt and black work pants with paint stains, using tools on the windowsill.

Forest Community Energy

Forest Community Energy is a group of local people helping the Forest of Dean generate its own clean, local power. This includes getting more community owned solar onto roofs of local community buildings and running other energy-related projects. 

Click here to find out more

Members of Forest Community Energy. Four people standing behind a table at a community event, wearing medals, with informational banners and Christmas trees on either side.
A group of people at Food and Farming Climathon. They are gathered in a room participating in a discussion around a large sheet of paper on the wall with colorful sticky notes. A woman is pointing at the sticky notes while others observe.

Future Energy Landscapes

We believe that decisions about local energy should involve local people. In partnership with the District Council and the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE), we are trialling a new way to plan for our future energy needs.

The Future Energy Landscapes project will test an approach with Forest of Dean communities that gives them the chance to explore for themselves where renewable energy should go and how it can best serve their community.

Where is this happening? We are currently funded to work across three sites until November 2026:

North: Dymock and Bromsberrow.

Central: Westbury-on-Severn and Blaisdon.

South: Tidenham.

By planning together, we want to ensure that the switch to green energy is fair, local, and benefits everyone who calls the Forest home.

This work is funded by the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme.