Well said, Minister!
In recent days and weeks, there have been welcome and encouraging words from the Energy Minister, Michael Shanks, and his department about the Government’s intention to enable the buying of community energy locally.
The Minister at the Committee
On 28th January, Mr Shanks gave a range of insightful and perceptive answers when he appeared before the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee of MPs, a Parliamentary body that scrutinises the activity of his department, as part of their ‘Unlocking community energy at scale’ inquiry.
It was excellent to see that, on this matter, Mr Shanks is a minister competently and thoroughly on top of his brief.
“It is about community wealth building and putting communities in the driving seat of this, not having things done to them but with them, and then being able to profit from that,” said Mr Shanks, followed later by, “In this job, I have seen communities that are doing absolutely remarkable things against a system that is not doing everything it can to help them.”
And when questioned by the Committee on the specific reform we are calling for – legislating to enable people to buy their power from local community-run energy projects – he had yet more welcome words. Responding to Labour MP, Melanie Onn, on the barriers community energy projects face, he said,
“The regulatory system needs to make it much more straightforward for community energy groups to get up and operate, but then also to benefit from being able to sell their electricity locally.”
And in responding to Liberal Democrat MP, Wera Hobhouse, on what progress the Government has made on removing the barriers to local selling, he said,
“There are also ways—and we want to explore this further—around how we can support local energy networks so that there are communities directly benefiting from genuinely selling the electricity locally. That is more complex, because you then need to consider the back-up that is available, should the local generation not fully meet the demand. We are open to all of these ideas.”
We welcome these words and thank Mr Shanks for his clarity and enthusiasm.
He is right that reforming our energy system so that we can have local buying and selling is complex. That is why we have always sought to be constructive with our proposals, especially via the iteratively improved versions of our Local Electricity Bill.
It is also encouraging that the Minister’s answers were in step with the 108 MPs who have publicly shown support for the change by signing Parliamentary Early Day Motion 2151 ‘Buying community energy locally’.
The new Government plan
On 10th February the Minister’s department then published the Local Power Plan. Within it are several encouraging statements on enabling local buying and selling of community energy, most notably in the section titled, ‘Support Type 4: Policy and Regulatory Changes’, where it says, “Give communities fairer access to energy markets. DESNZ will: … Make it easier for communities to sell their power.”
The document also says one of the ‘next steps’, over the coming years, for the Government’s new energy company, Great British Energy, is to, “Establish route to market for unlocking SLES.” SLES meaning a ‘Smart Local Energy System’.
On the day it was published, this new plan was debated in the House of Commons. During the debate, Liberal Democrat MP, Pippa Heylings asked,
“On the crucial issue of local empowerment, regulation is needed. Organisations such as Power for People constantly told us that there are, as the Secretary of State said, barriers to access fair local markets. They welcome this plan, too, echoing the Minister’s promise that the Government will establish local energy supply models. The local power plan—I have looked through it very quickly—talks about the regulatory changes necessary, but when will they come through? The energy transition has to happen not to communities, but with them.”
To which the Energy Secretary of State, Ed Miliband, replied,
“On Ofgem and some of the regulatory changes, absolutely we are going to work as quickly as we can to unblock some of the barriers and ensure that can happen as swiftly as possible.”
Later, a further question on local buying and selling came from Labour MP, John Whitby, when he asked,
“I have spoken to groups across my constituency such as Transition Crich and Derbyshire Dales Community Energy, which are working to create new community-owned energy projects in order to cut bills and drive down emissions. The £1 billion announced today will significantly help with their aims. However, these groups will grow faster if they are able to sell their energy directly to households in their communities. Could the Secretary of State therefore update us on what plans he has to implement local supply rights for community energy schemes?”
To which Mr Miliband replied,
“We are right into the nerdery here—and it is really important nerdery. My honourable Friend makes an essential point about the ability to sell this power back into the grid. I assure him that we are working on this with Ofgem to improve the offer to local community groups, because it is an essential part of ensuring that economic value goes to groups, including those in his constituency.”
Community energy groups respond
“Local people will always want to know whether we can directly provide their homes with cheaper, locally generated clean energy. We are looking forward to being able to tell them that we can.” - Joe Smee, Development Director of Glasgow Energy, Scotland.
“It’s very exciting to see that changes to enable local buying and selling of community-led renewable energy will be coming forward soon.” - Dan McCallum, co-founder of Awel Aman Tawe, Wales.
“We are delighted that there should soon be reforms which will mean households and businesses can buy energy directly from local community energy projects in their areas. This will make a huge difference to the growth of community-led renewable energy and help us reach an inclusive net-zero carbon future.” - Pete West, Steering Group Member of Wessex Community Energy Network, England.
The question is: When?
With all these welcome words of intent, the essential question is: When? When will we see legislation from the Government that will turn the intent to enable the buying and selling of community energy locally into a reality?
A new Parliamentary session is expected to start in mid-May and we look forward to the reforms being part of new energy legislation soon after.
Meanwhile, please ask your MP to sign Early Day Motion 2151 ‘Buying community energy locally’, if they have not yet done so. Together we can persuade the Government to legislate for this change they keep saying they want to make.