Addendum to MP Briefing: ‘Great British Energy Bill Consideration of Amendments, 25th March 2025: The Government’s Community Energy Amendment and the Community Energy Fund’

This is an addendum to Power for People’s 17th March briefing, ‘Great British Energy Bill Consideration of Amendments, 25th March 2025: The Government’s Community Energy Amendment and the Community Energy Fund’, which can be read here

This morning the Government announced a further £5 million for the Community Energy Fund, ending the uncertainty over its continuation. 

The initial £10 million that the fund started with in January 2024 had already been granted to around 170 community energy schemes, which is expected to lead to well over 100 megawatts of new renewable energy generation. 

We welcome this additional money and thank the Government for it. These funds will go some way towards addressing the overwhelming enthusiasm that the Community Energy Fund has already experienced. 

In particular, this announcement will come as a huge relief to over 100 community groups that, having put in the hard work to write and submit funding bids, were told they had been successful, only then to be told soon after that they would receive nothing, because the fund’s initial money had run out. 

This new support from the Government, combined with their recent decision to include community energy in the Great British Energy Bill, is encouraging.

For community energy’s remarkable potential to be realised, regulatory reform is required, so that community energy can stand on its own two feet in the market. Studies, such as one by the Environmental Audit Committee in the last Parliament, have suggested that renewable generation from community energy projects could increase by twentyfold over ten years, if this was done. Growth of this order would make community energy the equivalent of around two large nuclear power stations of generating capacity.

The single most effective change that could help achieve this would be enabling community energy projects to sell their clean electricity directly to local households and local businesses. The Local Electricity Bill 2023, which Ed Miliband and over 320 other MPs supported, would have done this. 

Therefore, at the debate on Tuesday next week, we ask MPs to please ask the Minister, Michael Shanks, to ensure that Great British Energy builds on today’s welcome announcement by enabling community energy projects to sell their power directly to local customers.