Teaming up for a Community Energy Revolution
We're delighted to announce that Good Energy have become the first national energy utility to back the Local Electricity Bill.
Juliet Davenport, CEO and Founder of Good Energy, said: “Locally delivered renewables offer major benefits to communities and their economies. The problem is our energy system favours large power stations, and outdated rules are blocking progress. The Local Electricity Bill would change this by empowering communities to sell local energy directly to local people. And as more of these community projects get built, the money will stay in the local area, providing a boost to the rural economy.”
Our joint statement with Good Energy:
There is huge potential for new community-scale renewable energy infrastructure to be built across Britain and for this to benefit local communities and their economies1.
But this potential is being blocked by antiquated rules and regulations that govern our energy system.
If this potential is realised it will help strengthen local economies as they recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and it will help us stop climate change by making our energy system cleaner.
The Local Electricity Bill, if made law, would remove this blockage by empowering communities to sell local energy directly to local people2. New community-scale renewable energy infrastructure projects would then become financially viable due to more of the money from the bills we all pay for our energy circulating within our local economies.
We accept that the Bill, in its current form, can be improved and needs to be refined in order to ensure that its aims are realised. We call on all MPs and the government to support the Bill and to work together with us and our coalition partners to ensure that it unlocks the remarkable and exciting potential for communities across the country to benefit from local clean energy.
Juliet Davenport, CEO and Founder of Good Energy
Steve Shaw, Director of Power for People
1) Community energy currently accounts for less than half a percent of our total energy generating capacity. A 2014 government report stated that by now it could have been at least ten times that. (source: The Department for Energy and Climate Change; Community Renewable Electricity Generation; January 2014)
2) The Local Electricity Bill: https://services.parliament.uk/Bills/2019-21/localelectricity.html; detail on the Bill, the campaign for it and the supportive MPs, organisations and councils: https://powerforpeople.org.uk/the-local-electricity-bill/