Co-op Community Energy, a joint venture between Octopus Energy and Midcounties Co-operative, today unveiled a new identity as it embarks on its next stage of growth.
The business has been rebranded as Younity to reflect its partnerships with community-owned energy projects across England, Scotland and Wales.
Since its inception in October 2019, Younity has grown quickly to become the UK’s largest buyer of community-generated energy.
It currently has power purchase agreements with 100 community-owned projects. Together these generate enough electricity through solar, hydro and wind power to supply 45,000 domestic customers a year on Your Co-op Energy’s Community Power Tariff.
The rebrand, which was revealed at Community Energy England’s Spring Conference, was undertaken by Derbyshire-based creative agency Fluid Ideas.
Fluid came up with the new name, branding, website and social media strategy. The agency is also providing ongoing support to build awareness of Younity, website traffic and social media engagement.
Tom Hoines, managing director of Younity, said: “Our new name and brand identity marks an exciting step in our evolution as we continue to innovate through the delivery of ground-breaking projects and facilitate the growth of community energy across the country.
“We are seeing a big shift towards sustainability. Demand for green and renewable tariffs is on the rise.
“We wanted people to realise that we have a standalone identity whose core mission is to push forward community energy and support projects by adding value and providing the technical knowhow to help them succeed.
“Working with a range of innovation partners, we are developing new business models for generating and supplying community energy to ensure that perceptions change and that community energy becomes an integral part of the way the UK energy system operates.
“Our new brand identity provides the ideal platform from which to achieve these goals and expand the business.”
Community-owned renewable generators are run and owned by and for the benefit of communities in which they operate. The money ploughed into these schemes by equity investors is used to build the power generating assets, with the promise of returns over the long-term.
Surplus profits are put towards supporting community initiatives, such as helping people in fuel poverty, providing sustainability advice to local residents and education and training for young people.
Younity also has a community energy fund, which is used to support a variety of local initiatives. Younity donates money for every customer who switches to Your Co-op Energy’s Community Power Tariff. It has distributed £15,000 over the past eight months.
Ed Bowler, joint managing director of Fluid Ideas, who led a nine-strong agency team which worked on the Younity rebrand, said: “This has been a very exciting project in an interesting and important field, with a really good personality fit for Fluid.
“The world needs to drastically reduce carbon emissions and its reliance on traditional fossil fuels. Community energy is about communities producing energy from renewable sources such as solar, hydro and wind.
“A brand such as Younity, with the backing of Midcounties Co-op and Octopus Energy, has the potential to change the way we produce and consume energy, and to start reversing the damage we’re doing to the environment.”
