Some ten years ago the SidEnergy project was set up as the community energy group for the Sid Valley – but it had to halt its projects due to the withdrawal of feed-in-tariffs. Today, however, the CAPS project is keen to explore the options, as it looks to local energy production.
In parallel, the Power for People group campaigning for the Local Electricity Bill has garnered large cross-party parliamentary support. The campaign is now asking citizens to Write to Your MP – to request he writes to the Energy Minister, asking him to include community energy in the Great British Energy Bill which is to receive its second reading in the Commons on Thursday 5th September.
Here is today’s communication from the Power for People campaign:
On Thursday, the House of Commons will debate the Government’s newly proposed energy legislation: the ‘Great British Energy Bill’. The Bill, as it stands, contains no mention of community energy, despite the new Government repeatedly stating its support for the sector and promising measures to boost it.
The Bill should be strengthened with an amended to include enabling community energy as one of the list of Great British Energy’s objectives, otherwise it will be a major missed opportunity. We need to encourage MPs to attend the debate and urge the Government to do this.
My team and I have been busy sending out detailed briefings to MPs – a copy of the main one is further below. MPs hearing from constituents is, as always, the critical ingredient for success. We proved this at the Parliamentary debates that followed the King’s Speech in July, where as a result of advocacy from constituents many MPs raised community energy again and again, leading to words like this from the new energy minister, Michael Shanks,
“One of the missions of GB Energy will be around the idea of community-owned power. We have to bring two things together: we want communities to be in the driving seat of much of this in the future, but also to have some sense of ownership of the assets. … There is real appetite for that, and it is some of the early work that GB Energy will do.”
These encouraging words from the Government now need to translate into legislative action.
Could you please urgently help by writing to their local MP, asking them to attend the Great British Energy Bill debate on Thursday, 5th September, and call on the Energy Minister to commit to including community energy in the Bill?
Feel free to send a copy of the MP briefing, below, as part of this.
– MP BRIEFING –
Great British Energy Bill Second Reading, 5th September 2024
Enabling Community Energy
The Great British Energy Bill, whilst welcome, has no mention of community energy. It should be strengthened with an amended to include this. Otherwise the Bill will be a major missed opportunity for enabling growth in a highly promising clean energy sector.
The Bill will enable the Government to establish a Great British Energy company which can then facilitate more clean energy generation and other measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The weakness in the current wording is in Clause 3, where it lists the set of specific objects that Great British Energy will pursue. This list does not include enabling the growth of community energy.
That is despite Labour’s manifesto committing to enabling community energy and the new Government having stated their support for it.
We therefore ask MPs to please attend the debate on Thursday 5th September and call on the Minister
to commit to including community energy in the list of objects in Clause 3 of the Bill.
Community Energy and its Huge Potential
In the midst of an energy price crisis when cheap, clean, home-produced energy has never been more vital, there is huge potential nationwide for growth in small-scale renewable energy generation – especially by community groups that organise to provide cheaper, greener power and distribute the benefits locally.
Community energy schemes currently generate a mere 0.5% of the UK’s electricity. This could grow twentyfold in ten years, according to studies by the Environmental Audit Committee and others. This would power 2.2 million homes, save 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year,[1] create over 30,000 jobs,[2] reduce dependence on energy imports, boost local infrastructure investment, reduce people’s bills, reduce electricity system wastage and drive the public’s appetite for the transition to a sustainable economy.
The Blockage
Community energy schemes could grow rapidly if enabled to sell power that they generate directly to local customers. But, although legally allowed, they face insurmountable costs when trying to do so. Estimates of financial, technical and operational requirements involved put initial costs in excess of £1 million.[3]
The barriers mean that not one single community energy scheme sells their power directly to local customers. Previously, schemes could plan knowing the income they would receive from OFGEM’s Feed-in Tariffs. When that scheme closed to new applicants in April 2019, many planned community energy generation projects were scrapped and there has since been a collapse in growth.
The Solution
Community energy schemes need to receive a guaranteed, fair price for the clean electricity that they contribute to the energy system. If the costs of selling their power to local households and businesses were made proportionate many more community energy schemes would be financial viable, ensuring that their remarkable growth potential, as stated above, would be realised. The Great British Energy Bill is the ideal place to ensure this by adding community energy to as one of Great British Energy’s objects in Clause 3.
Public Support
A public campaign for the above solution received support from over 320 MPs in the last Parliament and is backed by 105 Local Authorities and 101 national organisations including the National Trust, the Church of England, CPRE, the Energy Saving Trust, RSPB, WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.[4] In addition, four of the six Distribution Network Operators (the UK’s regional energy grid monopolies) – Electricity North West, SP Energy Networks, UK Power Networks and Western Power Distribution – are supportive.
Government Support for Community Energy
Michael Shanks MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, ‘Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower’ debate, House of Commons, Friday 26 July 2024:
“One of the missions of GB Energy will be around the idea of community-owned power. We have to bring two things together: we want communities to be in the driving seat of much of this in the future, but also to have some sense of ownership of the assets. … There is real appetite for that, and it is some of the early work that GB Energy will do.”[5]
Great British Energy’s three initial priorities:
“Great British Energy will have three initial priorities working alongside private partners … 3. Scale up municipal and community energy: GB Energy will partner with energy companies, local authorities and cooperatives to develop 8GWs small-scale and medium-scale community energy projects. Profits will flow directly back into local communities to cut bills, not to the shareholders of foreign companies. This will help to create a more decentralised energy system, with more local generation and ownership, and will help to create a more resilient energy system.”[6]
Great British Energy founding statement, 25th July 2024:
“And we will be investing in community-owned energy generation, reducing the pressures on the transmission grid while giving local people a stake in their transition to net zero. … The Local Power Plan will help crowd in investment while ensuring benefits flow directly back into local communities. This increased investment will create thousands of skilled, clean energy jobs across the country and change communities for the better. To support local and combined authorities, and community energy groups in accessing funding, the Local Power Plan will also provide commercial, technical and project-planning assistance, increasing their capability and capacity to build a pipeline of successful projects in their local areas.”[7]
Labour Party Manifesto 2024
“Great British Energy will partner with industry and trade unions to deliver clean power by co-investing in leading technologies; will help support capital-intensive projects; and will deploy local energy production to benefit communities across the country. … We will invite communities to come forward with projects, and work with local leaders and devolved governments to ensure local people benefit directly from this energy production.”[8]
Contact for Further Information
Steve Shaw, Director of Power for People
steve.shaw@powerforpeople.org.uk
07788 646 933
Sources
[1] Environmental Audit Committee; 2021 – https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/406/
[2] The Poverty and Environment Trust, ‘The Call for A Level Playing Field’; https://povertyandenvironmenttrust.org/current-projects
[3] IPPR, ‘Community and Local Energy’; https://www.ippr.org/files/publications/pdf/community-energy_June2016.pdf
[4] full list at www.powerforpeople.org.uk
[6] https://great-british-energy.org.uk/
[8] Labour Manifesto, pages 53-54 https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Labour-Party-manifesto-2024.pdf
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