Consense appointed by PfR to build an online consultation system for public sector renewable energy projects

(26/10/2009)

Public sector bodies own around 10% of the land in the UK including tens of thousands of buildings and over one million hectares of land. Despite this, only a very small percentage is currently being used to provide homes and businesses with a cleaner, greener form of energy.

Set up by Carbon Trust Enterprises in 2006, PfR works exclusively with public sector bodies to develop and manage renewable energy projects across the UK for organisations such as universities, prisons, the Environment Agency and British Waterways. PfR aims to deliver 500 megawatts of clean, green electricity, over the next 5 – 8 years, on public sector land - that is enough renewable energy to power over 250,000 homes – or provide power for houses in Exeter, Oxford, Norwich and Newcastle combined.

Consense has been appointed by Partnerships for Renewables (PfR) to build an online consultation system that will be adopted for over 50 public sector renewable energy projects. Consense will also be providing design and print services for PfR's consultation materials, including newsletters for local residents and public exhibition displays.

Consense will be creating an online consultation master system that enables PfR to manage online feedback for all of its projects from one central ‘administration area’. The system will involve integrating an online questionnaire and feedback form into each of the project micro-sites and it will also link up with another database that captures responses from the ‘offline’ consultation activity.

Tom Brinicombe, Head of Marketing and Communications, PfR comments: “One of our key objectives is to engage with the local community at all stages of a project to ensure we understand and address their concerns. The innovative system developed by Consense will help us to involve more of the community in each project.”

This is the latest win for Consense, which recently announced Mainstream Renewable Power, ScottishPower Renewables and Energy Power Resources as new clients and also revealed its launch into the offshore wind and biomass energy markets.

To date Consense has helped a range of projects to run wide-reaching, successful community consultations. The team at Consense also manages a variety of other consultation strategy and support activities such as political audits, public exhibitions, newsletters, advertising and PR.

Related categories:  Biofuels and biomass   Solar power and photovoltaics   Wind power