Community Retrofit Director

Repowering London – Community Retrofit Director 

Role outline: Managing the deployment and maintenance of Repowering’s low-carbon infrastructure, leading the Community Retrofit team 

Contract: Full-time role with probation period of 3 months.  

Salary: £49-55k  

Location: Primarily Repowering London’s office in Brixton, with option of partial working from home. Minimum of 3 days per week must be spent in the Repowering London office. Support will be provided for remote/home working if you need it. 

Application process: CV and cover letter and interview. 

Closing date:  23/06/24 

Contact for questions: Julia Dunlop 

About the role: 

We are looking for an experienced and self-motivated person with experience of low carbon retrofit, asset management, and business development to join Repowering London’s growing team. You will be a core part of our mission to tackle climate change and move towards a more inclusive and sustainable future. 

This will be a high-profile role within the executive team of a nationally significant social enterprise that is at the leading edge of urban community energy, with significant ambitions for scale and impact. You will work alongside the Executive Team with shared responsibility for setting and realising the organisation’s goals, strategic priorities, and business plan. 

Community Retrofit is a place-based approach to decarbonisation and community development, that creates low-carbon infrastructure, which is technically integrated at a local level, and provides direct benefits to local communities, for example through community ownership, affordable energy supply, or high-quality jobs.  

You will be responsible for leading the Community Retrofit team. The team currently encompasses seven staff working across domestic and non-domestic:  

• Rooftop solar installations  

• Communal heat networks 

• Retrofit assessment and coordination 

• Data collection and analysis 

• Asset management 

Rooftop solar is the most established asset type deployed by Repowering, with installations dating to 2013. Retrofit assessment and coordination services started in 2023, and communal heat network investments are expected in 2025.  

You will be responsible for ensuring high quality installations of low carbon assets that perform as forecast.  

You will lead the development of improvements to our processes for evaluating potential sites and deploying and maintaining low carbon assets and retrofit measures. 

The role will require ongoing refinement of Repowering’s Community Retrofit offer to community groups, building owners and public bodies such as Local Authorities, and support the growth of long-term partnerships with our stakeholders, including supply chain partners.  

In particular, working with the Repowering executive team you will support the incubation of a suite of a finance offers that allow a wider range of households, businesses and communities to participate in Community Retrofit. 

You will also support Repowering’s work to increase employment opportunities for young people in the low carbon sector, through how we structure our procurement for installations and by the training programmes we run in-house and with partners.  

The Community Retrofit Team is one of Repowering’s four key teams, which include Communities, Energy Supply, and Core Operations. Each of these teams supports the work of the others and ongoing coordination and communication will be an important part of the role to maximise the opportunities for learning and innovation across the organisation.  

About Repowering London 

Repowering London is an award-winning social enterprise developing clean energy for urban communities. A community development organisation, we enable local communities to plan, fund, build and benefit from clean energy and energy efficiency projects across buildings. We help people see how they can make a real difference.  

We are UK's most experienced urban community energy innovator with a successful track record of working in partnership with major London councils and national funders for the last ten years.  

Our clean energy local ownership model is scalable and strengthens communities by delivering clean energy hand in hand with a range of long-term local services and benefits – from skills training to lower energy bills and generating funds for local investment.   

Our vision is for every town and city in the UK to benefit from locally owned clean energy solutions. We believe that urban buildings can be transformed into intelligent, efficient, clean power hubs, providing substantial economic, social and environmental benefits. Energy security can become the norm, inequality and fuel poverty a thing of the past. 

As a place to work, Repowering London has a strong culture of personal respect and integrity. We have a talented and diverse team, and we have all made the choice to be part of positive solutions to the collective challenges we face. We aim to create a supportive and empowering working environment, with high levels of collaboration, team support, and personal and professional development. 

Person specification 

The right candidate will have a high level of technical due diligence, project management and business development experience, with a track record in leading successful teams. This is particularly important as Repowering London is in a growth phase and is expected to expand significantly in the coming years. You will be comfortable working collaboratively and managing a number of staff and external contractors, as well as building and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders. 

As this role is at the most senior level of the organisation, it provides an opportunity to shape business development and long-term strategy. Experience of commercial service delivery will be key to creating a sustainable platform for Community Retrofit. 

For this role, we will be looking for and assessing candidates on the following:  

• Exceptional leadership skills to lead a growing team and manage a portfolio of projects 

• Experience of asset deployment and maintenance in the construction, retrofit or renewable energy sectors  

• Track record of developing and growing a commercial service or product 

• Formal training in engineering, architecture or quantity surveying  

• Experience of managing multi-partner projects, that may include academia, technical experts, contractors and local government 

• Analytical skills to interpret data and financial models  

• Excellent written and oral communications skills and confidence in presenting to a wide range of audiences 

• Interest in Community Retrofit as a concept and strategy 

• Capacity to self-reflect on performance, proactively problem-solve and welcome feedback on performance 

The following are not essential for the role but would be good to have: 

• Experience of publicly funded grant schemes or loan finance 

• Experience of energy services and supply contracts 

• Experience of customer journey development, using digital platforms 

• Understanding of PAS2035 requirements  

• Experience of building energy modelling, such as SAP or PHPP 

• Accreditation as a retrofit coordinator or assessor 

• Familiarity with Notion, MS Project or other collaborative project management tools 

Repowering London’s Employee Value Proposition 

 
At Repowering London we want everyone to feel valued and have the opportunity to develop your skills and experience.  We offer support and work-based training to support you in your role.  

Skills development is not just limited to your role at Repowering London and as an organisation we want to support employees to pursue opportunities outside of work which will broaden skills and networks.   

Our team is diverse, and we recognise that everyone has responsibilities and interests outside of work, whether it is caring for family, studying, volunteering or taking time out. Repowering London want to support employees and give them the time to spend time on the things that are important to them.  Our Flexi Time Policy and Volunteering Policy provide scope for ad hoc, short-term arrangements, and our Unpaid Leave Policy provides an option for those who need to take time away from work for an extended period.  

How to apply 

Please send your CV and a cover letter via email to Julia Dunlop by 23.59 on 23rd June 2024. We will acknowledge all applications for the role. 

We will hold interviews for shortlisted candidates during the week of 8th July. 

We reserve the right to end the recruitment process early. 

Repowering London is committed to providing equal opportunities for all applicants regardless of their background. We value diversity whilst recognising that accessing employment has different challenges for different people. We encourage applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnic people; people who identify as having a disability; people from the LGBT+ community; and people who identify as working class (or have done in the past). If you would like to have an informal chat before applying, please get in touch – we would be very happy to talk to you.