Power for People Welcomes New Community Energy Fund
This new £10 million Government fund is a welcome boost to the stalled community energy sector, but market reform is still needed for it to realise its full potential.
The fund gives community energy groups the opportunity to apply for funding over the next two years to help expand or start local renewable energy projects.
At present, community energy accounts for less than 0.5% of total UK electricity generation capacity. There has been little growth in recent years, despite studies indicating that with supportive policy, the sector could grow twentyfold within a decade.
While the new Government fund will enable growth in English community energy schemes, both urban and rural, it has not been made available for projects in Scotland and Wales and contains no future promise to remove the barriers that schemes across the UK face in securing a fair price for the clean electricity they generate.
Power for People’s Director, Steve Shaw, said,
“This fund is a welcome initiative that will enable new community-led renewable energy projects to spring up across England. Growth in these projects, and supportive policies to enable that growth, have faltered in recent years. We are pleased to see that the Government recognises the importance of local-led generation in delivering net zero and in creating a more secure and competitive home-grown energy market.
Within ten years, community energy projects could be powering millions of homes across the UK with clean local energy, creating thousands of skilled jobs and channelling money back into local economies. To enable the dramatic growth that studies tell us is possible, these projects must be empowered to sell their clean electricity to local people for a fair price. We hope that this fund can be a bridge to help community energy projects while the Government continues to look for solutions to a viable route-to-market.
Integrating community energy into the Government’s future energy policy is vital, especially with regard to fuel poverty and energy security. This is a welcome step in that direction.”
The campaign to enable UK-wide community energy growth, co-ordinated by Power for People, is backed by 326 MPs, a national coalition of tens of thousands of people, Community Energy England, Community Energy Scotland, Community Energy Wales, hundreds of local councils and over 100 national organisations including the National Trust, the Church of England, the RSPB, CPRE, WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
The Government’s press release about the Community Energy Fund for England: