Our Story So Far...
We are a Kent-based family-run consultancy with a small number of community group clients across the UK.
After a varied career in financial and general management across the media, hospitality and energy sectors, in late 2019 Russell Hoare, founder of DOAN Energy Limited, became Managing Director of Third Energy Limited, a company with gas wells and a gas turbine power station in North Yorkshire. With declining gas in the nearby geological reserves, Russell convinced the shareholders to abandon the gas strategy, close down the wells, mothball the power station and pursue a renewable energy strategy.
This new strategy initially involved repurposing the gas wells into geothermal wells and developing a 50MW solar PV project with accompanying 28MW battery storage facility using the land and assets that the company already owned. After selling the land and grid connection associated with the battery storage and solar PV project, Russell was able to finance the business and pursue the use of the redundant gas wells for providing heat into local villages and towns.
This new direction led Russell to develop relationships with many communities that were located near to the company's wells and investigation into raising government grant funding for feasibility studies to determine whether such geothermal heat networks were viable. By mid-2025, being part of a corporate energy company was becoming restrictive for what Russell enjoyed most - helping communities to identify, develop and finance their own renewable energy projects. So he resigned from his role at the time and with his wife, Jayne, set up DOAN Energy with the specific aim of assisting community groups in developing community energy projects and raising the necessary grant funding to get those projects started.
Russell has been successfully raising project financing for many years but since the beginning of 2025, DOAN Energy has helped to raise £413,106 in grant funding across five energy projects serving six different communities. An additional £104,000 of private match funding has also been raised to support those projects.
Most recently, DOAN Energy has been developing two heat network projects for Pickering Town CIC in North Yorkshire which includes detailed engineering designs, planning applications and community engagement such as a volunteer geothermal champions group and a weekly summer market stall where we have been able to engage directly with the local residents and businesses regarding the projects.
"I’ve been working with Russell Hoare of DOAN Energy since March 2020, first as Pickering’s district councilor, then as Chair of Pickering Town Community Interest Company. Throughout that period, we have built an excellent level of mutual trust and cooperation. I have found Russell to be efficient, knowledgeable, reliable, honest and transparent in all our dealings. Consequently, we continue to move forward positively in our mutual aim to make decarbonised, affordable, geothermal heating a reality." Mike Potter, Chair of Pickering Town Community Interest Company
The Company is currently working with nine more community groups across Kent and the north east on projects encompassing solar PV, battery storage, small-scale wind turbines, ground-source heat networks and air-source heat pumps.