Create your own portable solar charger from re-used materials able to power phones and USB devices

• Take your charger home at the end of the day
• All materials provided, including charging components
• Bring a friend and get 10% off
• 95% of public workshop attendees rated our course as 'excellent' or 'very good'

You will:

• Learn what energy is - how it works today, and what’s in store for the future
• Understand the electrical basics: current, voltage, resistance, power, series and parallel circuits
• Build your own fully functional solar PV panels
• Understand how to test your panel and connect charging components to use your power on the spot
• Dig deeper into the energy dilemma - and possible solutions

No prior knowledge required!
Watch our video preview here

For more information on course content go here.

To book a place go here.

To book with Introduction to Off-grid Systems and save £15 go here.

All profits reinvested into our social objectives.
Demand Energy Equality is a not-for-profit dedicated to increasing energy literacy, reducing energy demand and working with others to ensure equality of energy access.

The Green Apprenticeship

Join us for a 4 week practical training program in hand-on sustainable engineering, systems design and cooperative living. We’ll be learning about designing, building and running of sustainable projects, while linking together ecological, social, economic and cultural aspects into a unified whole. We’ll develop skills through hands-on work in our environmental education center, organic gardens, and alternative/natural building projects. We live in the EcoCampus – beautiful hand crafted domes – in Kibbutz Lotan, a desert oasis. At the end of the course participants receive an internationally recognized Permaculture Design Certification.

A tour of the gardens at Home on the Hill showcasing how permacultre principles and organic gardening practices are implemented here. Includes notes, tea and flapjack.

Booking via Eventbrite link on FaceBook event page

Create one of the most useful bits of kit for a whole range of green woodworking projects – your very own shave horse!

This hands on, two-day workshop will provide all the materials needed to construct your own roundwood timber shave horse, under the expert guidance of local craftsman Jamie Miller. You will learn how to use traditional tools and green wood to make a working shave horse, complete with the all important vice clamp which enables wood to be shaped by a drawknife.

A shave horse (shaving horse, or shaving bench) is a combination of vice and workbench, used for green woodworking. Typical usage is to create a round profile along a square piece, such as for a chair leg or to prepare a workpiece for the pole lathe.

The finished shave horse can be easily taken apart to fit into a normal size car boot.

During this workshop, you will learn the unusual technique of weaving willow into a rope to form a unique rope coil basket.

You will also learn how to use packing to add shape and form and can experiment with natural and dyed willow to add colour. This rope coil basket workshop is suitable for all levels. All tools and equipment will be provided. Additional willow will be available for you to purchase for future makes.

Places are limited to eight participants per event and must be booked in advance.

Utilize the natural beauty and low impact nature of roundwood timber framing to create structures ranging from simple sheds and shelters to your own home or barn.

If you’ve always dreamed of building your own bespoke home this five day roundwood timber framing course will provide you with all the skills that you need. Under the expert tuition of craftsman Jamie Miller of Ty Pren, you will learn all the basic techniques for design and construction of your own project.

Course Programme:
Day 1. Why roundwood? a look at the woods, timber selection and grading. Stripping poles for
construction.
Day 2. Framing bed and layout of frame. Marking up and position of joints.
Day 3. Work on frame.
Day 4. Bracing and Truss work.
Day 5. Finish frame and raise.

A delicious organic two-course vegetarian lunch is provided on each workday (please let us know if you have any special dietary requirements).

You will need steel toe cap boots and are welcome to bring along any tools you might have and like to use. Location is in a woodland in Llangybi (not at Denmark Farm Conservation Centre). Location details and meeting point will be confirmed after registration.

This is a hands-on practical building course introducing the principles of the Walter Segal method of timber framing through the construction of a small structure on-site at Harehope Quarry. Practical instruction will be supplemented by an evening talk on Saturday. The course includes a light lunch & refreshments each day plus an evening meal as well as the option to camp on site. Further details can be provided on request.

This session will cover how to harvest, dry and sow your own seed for vegetables, fruit and flowers. Seed is always best sown fresh, and the most reliable way of doing this is to harvest your own. Learn the best times to do this, when and how to collect seed and why gathering your own produces more reliable, sturdier crops. Caroline Beck is a garden writer and cut flower grower with over 25 years experience of harvesting and sowing her own seed. Refreshments provided.

Make the ‘most boat’ you can from a single sheet of plywood using basic DIY skills. The one-sheet skiff can carry a small adult or young person and can be paddled, rowed, even sailed or driven by a small electric motor with a bit of imagination. Over two days you will mark up and cut the component parts, fix together the sides and transom and attach the bottom to create a perfect small boat for still waters. Test-launch on Sunday and then take home (on a roof rack) to paint with ordinary domestic paint. Suitable for adults and families with children over 8. There are places to make 4 boats so booking is essential at least 2 weeks in advance. Refreshments and lunch provided and camping available.

The aim of this course is to equip participants with the knowledge and skills to grow their own gourmet mushrooms outdoors. An indoor session will cover the biology and ecology of mushrooms and fungi and the important role that mushroom mycelium play in the cultivation process, including a look at different types of mushroom spawn. A practical outdoor session will demonstrate making up a Shiitake log and a Nameko woodchip mushroom bed. Each participant will make their own log and take it home with them. Gourmet Woodland Mushrooms has been producing mushroom spawn since 2004, so this course will provide a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw upon. Includes refreshments and a light lunch.