A NOT-for-profit organisation is trying to raise £1m in a race to install solar panels on schools across Oxfordshire.

Oxford's Low Carbon Hub group has launched a 'community share offer' in a bid to raise the cash by the end of July.

Residents can buy 'shares' in the programme and in return get yearly dividends once the mini power plants start generating electricity.

The hub wants to install as many panels as possible to help schools cut their energy bills while reducing the county’s impact on climate change.

It also needs to install the facilities as soon as possible in order to benefit from the Government's solar panel feed-in tariff which closes in March 2019.

Low Carbon Hub CEO Barbara Hammond said: "The opportunity is brilliantly clear: no costs for the school, they save money on their electricity bills, reduce their CO2 emissions and get an educational tool for their students."

The hub has already announced that it will install the first panels in this programme at Longfields Primary School in Bicester, a facility that will generate more than 40,000 kWh of clean electricity a year and save more than 15 tonnes of CO2 from being emitted.

Shares in The Community Energy Fund start at £250 and investors are being offered up to five per cent interest a year.

Find out more at lowcarbonhub.org/invest