Power Station: film screening plus director Q&A and energy drop-in sessions
Thursday 8 January, energy drop-in sessions from 3pm and film screening at 6.30pm, Depot Cinema, Pinwell Road, Lewes, BN7 2JS, tickets available here soon
‘Power Station’ tells of the story of a couple looking to transform their ordinary UK street into its own community power station. Howard Johns of People Owned Power invites you to come to this special screening and director Q&A and explore how the same model could be replicated here in Lewes.
Imagine: what if we could turn every home and every street into a people-owned power station and knit our communities back together with art, culture and connection in the process?
‘Power Station’ is the extraordinary story of an artist and film-maker who decided to do just that. Faced with climate and societal emergencies, they realise that they can no longer sit on the side lines, but must act.
So in an ordinary house, on a street in Walthamstow, north London, Dan Edelstyn and Hilary Powell document the highs and lows of trying to do something that is so obvious but so full of challenges: Trying to put people back in the centre of the energy system, lower bills, and solar power their street.
They tell a chaotic, heartwarming, funny and moving story of just how difficult it is to make change, but also of how many people want to be part of it, and the benefits go well beyond energy.
Watch the trailer here: Power Station Official Trailer – Sheffield 2025
People Owned Power in Lewes and beyond
I launched OneZero in Lewes just over two years ago after coming to exactly the same conclusions as Dan and Hilary: that there is now no reason why we cannot power our communities largely from the sun, as the price of solar power – and batteries to store it – have dropped so substantially.
Earlier this year we decided to rename the business POP – People Owned Power – because that is the prize and it changes everything.
We are not new to trying to turn Lewes into a power station, as our own local community energy organisation, Ovesco has been working on just that close on 20 years now. However, our experience in Lewes and Ringmer is that – for many homes – we can reduce bills and emissions by up to 80% in less than a fortnight, using solar batteries and air source heat pumps. Whilst this is harder to do for historic homes in the area, there are many thousands of more modern homes in our community that can realise these benefits.
From passive consumers to active power generators
Our next step is to share the data on this activity and start to coordinate additional benefits for all. When a collection of homes turn themselves into a distributed power station, we can totally shift the model from being passive consumers of energy that’s drilled and shipped from somewhere else to being active contributors, with potential income streams and cost and emissions savings to be made by coordinating our homes’ energy together.
We are also looking at how we make this affordable for all. We just completed a project in Brighton where we deployed systems for free, funded by local energy coop BHESCo. This model could be repeated here in Lewes, so not only do we drop bills, people locally can benefit from funding it.
So join us at the Depot from 3pm on Thursday 8 January for a drop-in session on what’s possible for your home and how to talk to your street about this. We also will host a local funding roundtable discussion from 4.30pm. The film screening will start at 6.30pm, followed by director Q&A with Dan Edelstyn himself.
In ‘Power Station’, Dan and Hilary have finally told the story of the energy transition in a way that connects with the heart, so do come and experience it and be inspired to see how we might learn from it here in Sussex.