Britain’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey has said community energy will no longer be a ‘policy footnote’ in government.
Large scale wind and solar farm developers will have to offer a “meaningful share” of their projects to communities, as part of a major new government strategy designed to boost public ownership of renewable energy.
The much-anticipated blueprint is to be official announced by government ministers today.
British environmental website BusinessGreen reports it is expected to contain a series of measures designed to encourage communities to take control of their energy supply, in some cases potentially lowering power bills.
“For too long, community energy has been a policy footnote, with all the focus on big generators and individual households, all but ignoring the potential of communities to play a key role,” Mr Davey said in a draft copy of the document, seen by BusinessGreen.
A number of sources told BusinessGreen that at the heart of the announcement would sit a “pathway to shared ownership”, asking larger onshore renewable energy developers to offer a significant share of ownership to communities.
Some organisations had called for the United Kingdom’s strategy to mirror the Danish model, whereby communities are automatically offered 20 per cent ownership of a project.
However, the government is thought to have shied away from stipulating a specific figure and instead called for developers to offer a “meaningful share”.
Shared ownership with communities is not new to the renewable energy industry, with developers such as Falck energy offering bonds to local residents to buy one wind turbine from its project and a similar policy already operating in Scotland.
The British govenrment paper will not propose a new law on community ownership, but ministers will threaten to legislate on the issue if the market fails to meet its demands in future.
The government document estimates that community-owned renewable energy projects could generate enough power for more than one million homes by the end of the decade and predicts high demand for new projects.
A survey on behalf of the government found that nearly two-fifths of people would invest in a project if it helped to lower their energy bills.
The wide-ranging strategy is also expected to include plans to double the feed-in tariff threshold for community energy projects from 5MW currently to 10MW.
BusinessGreen reports the government will issue a consultation on the proposed changes, which could make solar PV arrays on office or school roofs, community-owned wind turbines, and hydropower schemes more financially viable.
Significantly, the government is seeking approval from the European Union for the $5.7 billion Green Investment Bank (GIB) to invest in community-owned projects.
The strategy confirms that the UK recently started informal discussions with the European Commission about potentially including small-scale onshore wind energy and small-scale hydro within the bank’s lending criteria.
The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will also increase its focus on community energy by creating a dedicated team within the department, and set up a number of working groups to tackle issues around planning, permitting, grid connections, and offering lower cost energy supply contracts to host communities.
Community Energy Coalition (CEC), a group that includes the Co-operative, National Trust, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Church of England, Energy Saving Trust, NUS, and Co-operatives UK, welcomed the paper.
Jennifer Webber of trade association RenewableUK said the industry would work with the government to address the barriers to further developing community energy schemes.
“RenewableUK is committed to helping communities engage in renewable energy, and sponsored a report from Respublica on this last year,” she said.
DECC refused to comment on the specific details of the new strategy until after it is released.
