A SOLAR energy project which has just finished a major installation across the roof of a Brighton company has been nominated for the increasing.y hotly-contested Green Project or Person of the Year Award.

Brighton Energy Co-operative, (BEC) which crowd-sources funding in order to pay for solar panel installation projects, has raised more than £1m since 2012 and this August completed one of its largest projects to date.

The roof of the Infinity Foods warehouse in Portslade is now covered with more than 200 photovoltaic panels, and a roof over the company’s office block is next on the cards.

The firm is also working on another major installation to the north, in Chingford, on the roof of a company which recycles catalytic converters. The 800-panel installation will tie with BEC’s Shoreham Port headquarters as their biggest project to date.

Will Cottrell, Chairman of BED said of the Infinity Foods project: “This is great credit to the team at Infinity who’ve worked really hard to get the scheme through, as well as our project developers here at BEC – Damian Tow and Matt Brown.

“These things are not easy and require lots of patience. But we got there in the end.”

The co-operative now has in excess of 400 members, who invest what they can afford and are paid a five per cent return on their money.

Money raised from selling the electricity flows back into the coop, and is distributed in the form of the community fund which pays interest to members and pays back capital loaned to BEC.

BEC’s host sites benefit from the cheaper electricity that their panels provide.

Over the course of 2016, output from BEC systems which include installations in Portslade, the Hove Enterprise Centre and their Shoreham Port Sheds, has peaked at more than 5,500 kilowatt-hours.

BEC has also helped set up a Sustainable Energy Working Group to help develop joint projects across the city and encourage further education on sustainable solutions.

If they win this year’s Community stars Award, BEC will be in good company: last year’s gong went to the Real Junk Food Company, which saves food which would have otherwise been dumped in landfill and serves it at their ‘pay what you feel’ food waste cafe.