Community friendly energy policy

05 Jul Community friendly energy policy

We have a new government today, which brings hope to many parts of our lives and includes a sincere hope for a clear direction for energy policy. The last 9 years has seen numerous backwards steps, taking us further away from cheaper cleaner energy. Today we hope this changes and have set out some ideas for what we would like to see to put things on the right track for a cleaner, fairer energy system for the UK.

National Energy policy

1. Substantial and sustained energy efficiency funding to improve our housing stock and make it cheaper for people to live in their homes
2. Funding to support new renewable energy technology and community energy, to cement a greener and fairer energy transition putting ownership of projects in the hands of those who live near it
3. Change legislation to permit renewable energy generators to sell power to people living nearest to it

The grid

1. Commitment to 20 or 40 year infrastructure investments in grid infrastructure and removing the effects of the election cycle from holding back much needed changes to transition.
2. Speed up vital grid infrastructure works in pipeline
3. Prioritize community owned not for profit generation projects
4. Clarify the role of battery storage in terms of classification for grid capacity and recognize its role in improving grid flexibility

Planning policy

1. Remove the barriers to on shore wind, the cheapest form of power in the world. Identify areas for potential wind development and support community ownership of wind
2. Prioritize community owned renewable energy projects and recognize their long term economic, social, biodiversity and carbon benefits. This could include a requirement for commercial projects to provide a minimum of 25% of community ownership of any project
3. Make meaningful number of solar panels compulsory for all new build properties
4. Reverse the policy changes from recent years to ensure all new builds are built to a net zero standard

Community Energy Sector

1. Continue and expand the funding for new community owned renewable energy development and introduce the proposed Local Power Plan which offers £400m of low interest loans to communities to develop new projects
2. Change legislation to allow community owned projects to sell power to the local residents and businesses living near to them
3. Require large commercial rooftop owners to offer their roofs for community owned solar schemes to benefit the local community
4. Offer long term CFD funds to underpin export power sales to support long term community owned projects
5. Introduce a revolving capital fund for community projects to support finance and capital risk reduction

There may be more we can add to this list, but on the foundations of the above a great deal of good can happen and make significant strides towards decarbonizing our country’s energy demands and giving our society a fairer cleaner and lower cost energy system.