Artists turn London street into mini power station to tackle cost of living

A street in London’s E17 is taking itself off the grid to beat spiralling winter energy bills

As renewable energy overtakes coal for the first time, a street in East London is taking itself off the grid this winter by installing solar panels. And residents hope to inspire other neighbourhoods to follow their lead and generate their own green power to tackle the cost of living and climate crises.

Led by artists Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn, 20 houses on Lynmouth Road, E17, have had solar panels mounted on their roofs, saving 30 percent on their energy bills – and one has already made money by selling excess energy back to the National Grid.

Five nearby schools have also had solar panels put in place, and Hilary and Dan hope that each home with the panels will not only save money on their bills, but do their own bit for the environment.

Their project has been turned into a documentary, Power Station, directed by the couple, who started by asking their neighbours during the Covid pandemic whether they wanted to kickstart the production of green energy in their community.

It comes as renewable energy use – including solar, wind and hydro – rose to 34.3% of global consumption in the first half of 2025, while coal’s use fell to 33.1%, according to think tank Ember.

“The biggest difficulty at first was knocking on people’s doors and breaching that taboo. There’s a feeling that we’re all separate in London and that we shouldn’t bother each other,” says Hilary. “This street has opened up now and the community here is really strong.”

Once their neighbours were on board, Hilary and Dan asked them to put Power Station posters in their windows and to appear on camera for their documentary.

“We were asking on people’s doorsteps questions like, ‘are you worried about the climate? Are you worried about the cost of living?’” says Hilary. “But most of all, people wanted to get involved because they wanted to meet their neighbours and feel empowered to do something together.”

Hilary and Dan slept on their roof in below-zero temperatures for 23 nights during November and December 2022 to fundraise the first £100,000 to get the project started, which was put into getting solar panels installed on the first 16 homes. The next four homes, inspired by their neighbours, chose to meet the costs of installation themselves.

And more are set to join the green energy revolution, with a total of 35 homes on the street being surveyed for installation – and more than £400,000 raised so far.

After coming down from their roof, Dan, Hilary and their neighbours planted 1,000 sunflowers along their street as a symbol of community spirit.

“We closed the road down and it became a sunflower field,” smiles Hilary, who also planted sunflowers on her van. “When we’re working with infrastructure – political, social and technological – the biggest thing to change is our imagination, just what’s possible when we work together.”

The couple’s Community Interest Company has picked up interest from businesses, including Aviva who promised to match-fund donations of up to £250 to a total of £50,000.

“The idea is that if we stimulate the economy instead of doing austerity, much more productive capital will flow around and we can actually get solar panels and wind turbines, we can insulate houses and we can create a new kind of green economy, but we just imagined that we could do it on one street as artists,” says Dan.

Ultimately, the couple believe that if the government were to install solar panels on every house in the country, the cost would be made back within 10 years.

The average cost of fitting panels is £6,000, so putting a solar system on each of Britain’s 22 million homes would cost more than £133.56billion.

In comparison, the UK spends an average of £250 million a month importing electricity from mainland Europe.

Hilary and Dan’s next step is to have a local wind turbine put in to help more communities save on their bills.

“If we had a government that wanted to invest in actually solving the climate crisis and the cost of living crisis, here’s a really good way of doing it,” says Dan. “If everyone has cheaper energy bills then it solves two problems at the same time.”

*Power Station the documentary is showing in UK cinemas. To join Dan and Hilary’s Power Station project, donate at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/power-station