Community Energy England today says in a statement that it believes the party’s plans published yesterday “have the potential to transform Britain’s energy system through local action on climate which benefits local people”.

Labour’s promises unveiled yesterday back the party’s earlier pledges towards local energy. They include making targeted energy grants to local authorities from a £600 million pot, and low interest loans made direct to community groups from a pool of £400 million.

The party’s manifesto for 4 July declares “Local power generation is an essential part of the energy mix and reduces pressures on the transmission grid. Labour will deploy more distributed production capacity through our Local Power Plan. Great British Energy will partner with energy companies, local authorities, and co-operatives to install thousands of clean power projects, through a combination of onshore wind, solar, and hydropower projects.

“We will invite communities to come forward with projects, and work with local leaders and devolved governments to ensure local people benefit directly from this energy production.”

In its statement Community Energy England endorses probable energy secretary Ed Miliband’s view that such backing can “kick-start thousands of transformational local energy project”.

“Labour’s Local Power Plan offers grants for local authorities and low interest loans for community energy organisations to do new local, community-led and owned clean energy projects“, the CEE’s statement says.

“Over five years, this could deliver 8 gigawatts of solar and onshore wind – the equivalent of 2.5 nuclear power stations – enough to power 4.35 million homes”.

CEE chief executive Emma Bridge went on, “We welcome the Labour manifesto’s plan to grow our fantastic community energy sector and unlock huge benefits for local people.

“Community energy projects deliver 12 to 13 times the benefit of commercial energy installations. So they are uniquely suited to engage local people to participate in the energy transformation. Labour’s Local Power Plan is a win, win, win for communities, local economies and the country,” said Bridge

In 2021, the Environmental Audit Committee advised the government that “due to the urgency of the climate crisis and the vital roles communities will have to play in reaching net zero, it is essential… to support the long-term growth of community energy across the UK.” Chris Skidmore MP in his Review of the Government’s Net Zero Policies recommended that the government “turbocharge community energy.”

“The Labour manifesto and their Local Power Plan demonstrate that the party understands that empowering people and communities to take local climate action, which will also benefit local people, is essential to achieving net zero.

“We are pleased to see real backing for community energy in the Liberal Democrat and Green manifestos too”, noted Bridge.

“All parties with plans to meet the scale of the climate challenge share the consensus that community energy is crucial for any serious climate policy programme.

“We are disappointed that the Conservative manifesto, despite stretching to 80 pages, does not mention community energy at all. The Conservatives’ manifesto doubles down on commitments to invest more in fossil fuels, including new gas power stations, while continuing to block renewable energy developments”.

Bridge says restrictions on new onshore wind turbines have effectively stopped new ones being built in England, with just a handful of new turbines being built per year.  The Conservatives’ programme as set out in its manifesto would slow down progress towards net zero and cement our dependence on fossil fuels for years to come”.

Personal voting intentions differ among CEE officials, as influenced by the parties’ varying stances in relation to the burgeoning co-operative sector.

This week CEE policy manager Duncan Law shared with a public meeting of south London co-op SE24 Community Energy his intention to vote Green, due to their support for local, accountable actions in response to the climate emergency.

Former Conservative energy minister Chris Skidmore last week told a London solar conference that he was ‘politically homeless’, after he resigned his Bristol seat last year in disappointment at the Sunak’s administration’s foot-dragging over green issues.   The West County former MP told delegates that the future of energy is local, citing the achievements of co-ops such as Bath and West Community Energy.

Outside the activities of its volunteer-run co-operatives, today’s CEE statement welcomes Labour’s pledge to double onshore wind capacity by 2030. It notes that new onshore turbines in England have been held back since David Cameron’s Conservatives introduced a de facto ban nine years ago.

Interest declared:  The present author has for several years invested in and volunteered for several community energy co-ops across London and the South East.

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Backbench MPs believe community energy is being held back in its potential to expand up to twentyfold by 2030, selling carbon-free power to 2.2 million homes.

Co-ops in neighbouring countries face no such obstacles, say supporters. 3GW could have flowed from UK community capacity by 2020, according to a 2014 government report cited now by MPs.

Beis’ secretary of state has told a Commons committee Whitehall will provide no immediate reforms to curbs including local sale which MPs and participants say hold back the potential in of locally owned and retailed energy.

As The Energyst exclusively revealed, Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee wrote in April to Beis’s boss, seeking action on four topics the Conservative-majority group found were impeding community energy.

A ban on Britain’s local groups selling self-made power direct to communities, and fluctuating Smart Export Guarantees’ unreliability in underpinning energy co-ops’ finances, top woes afflicting co-ops, as identified by the EAC.

Now Kwarteng has replied, warning the committee that British energy co-ops must wait until ‘later this year’ for publication of the government’s Net Zero Strategy and the Treasury’s three-year Comprehensive Spending Review, before seeing any improvements.

Under its Conservative chair Philip Dunne MP, the EAC’s demands include more money from the £10 million Rural Community Energy Fund.  Though small in size, the minister tells MPs its expansion must ‘be considered as part of (a) wider process’ of the Treasury-led review.

In its enquiry into Britain’s community energy, the EAC had also taken up co-ops’ complaints about Smart Energy Guarantees (SEGs).

Reforms brought in after 2018 to compensate small generators for sale of surplus generation back to giant DNOs, SEGs have been slated by co-ops for volatility and meagre rewards, making them unviable to underpin co-ops’ finances in an unequal market.  In testimony to the inquiry, Paul Hallas, recently a senior Centrica director, now among leaders of south London’s SE24 co-op, denounced SEGs as ‘neither smart, nor a guarantee’.

The committee told the minister a floor price in SEGs was needed to assist co-ops in their business. But Kwarteng’s reply implies the market is working.

“We have seen the market respond positively with some tariffs on offer above both the wholesale price of electricity and the current FIT export tariff”, the SoS replies, in a letter believed to have been drafted by Beis’ head of local energy.

Kwarteng offers merely further thought about SEGs: “When we review Ofgem’s SEG report and assess whether small-scale generators are able to effectively sell electricity to the grid, we will consider whether there are any further barriers to deployment that need to be addressed at this scale”.

For Community Energy England, chief executive Emma Bridge said yesterday, “The Secretary of State’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s excellent recommendations…to remove barriers and provide ‘practical support measures’, is disappointing”.

“However CEE welcomes the indication that plans will be included in the Net Zero Strategy and funding considered as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review process”.

Bridge went on, “We join the select committee chair Philip Dunne MP is urging the Secretary of State “to develop ambitious proposal for further community energy funding in his submission to the forthcoming Spending Review.”

Representing 20 co-ops, Community Energy London convenor Syed Ahmed, agreed. “An underwhelming response from @KwasiKwarteng @beisgovuk” , Ahmed tweeted.  “In run up to #COP26 you would hope govt would want to boost community action on climate”.

This week is the first of Britain’s Community Energy Fortnight, promoting the sector. CE England says its membership has grown by 15% in the past 18 months to 273 organisations. Energy co-operatives across north west Europe, many run by salaried staff, are also increasing in popular participation. Germany’s DGRV claims over 900.

1 July may see MPs pushing back against Beis’ failure to embrace local energy. A cross-party group of MPs is seeking a three-hour debate in Parliament.

“Huge and unrealised potential for more community-scale renewable energy schemes (exists) across the UK”, the group, organised by Conservative Peter Aldous, LibDem Wera Hobhouse & Plaid Cymru’s Ben Lake, tell Commons authorities.

“Establishing a right to local supply would solve this problem…Proposed legislation to establish such a right, in the form of the Local Electricity Bill, is currently supported by 260 MPs from all parties across the House”, they say in their debate application.

The trio claim a government report in 2014 estimated the community energy sector could have delivered 3 Gigawatts of generating capacity by 2020.

They cite the Environment Audit Committee’s belief in the current inquiry that ‘by 2030 the community energy sector could grow by 12 to 20 times, powering 2.2 million homes and saving 2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions every year.”

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