VTW 2026 Climate Tech Day: Panel discussion at Swans Pub - How to Fund and Build Community-Owned Energy Projects

​Community-scale energy technology is ready. Projects stall on the structures around it: capital that isn't built for community ownership, procurement and utility relationships that assume a conventional developer, and benefit models that move value out of the community. This panel works through what it takes to move a community energy project from intent to operating asset, and who has to be at the table early for it to hold.

​The conversation follows a project from the first steps: who needs to be involved early, the groundwork before any capital moves, how the financing gets structured, and what delivery looks like when the community owns the result.

​Speakers

• ​Ravihari Kotagodahetti (Accelerating Community Energy Transformation, UVic): brings the technical feasibility perspective on the groundwork a community needs before capital moves, from energy use and grid conditions to system design.

• ​Aura Silva (Raven Indigenous Outcomes Fund): brings the capital and outcomes-financing perspective on funding community and Indigenous-led energy projects so ownership and benefit stay local.

• ​Christy Pham (Accelerating Community Energy Transformation, UVic): brings the infrastructure investment and business case perspective on building, financing and operating a community-owned asset for the long term.

​Expect people from energy, community development, Indigenous economic development, and the financing side of the transition.

​Part of Climate Tech Day at Victoria Tech Week 2026.