Generating and using energy locally makes a lot of sense. It
avoids transmission loses and can enable direct ownership and control by local
users and/or community groups. The UK Coalition Government’s Community Energy
Strategy in 2014, as updated in 2015, aimed to aid the growth of community
energy, with, in 2016, the Urban Community Energy Fund offering £200,000
in grants and £1m in loans, while community energy groups were offered a tax
advantaged under Social Investment Tax Relief. However, take up has been
hit by wider policy changes, and registrations in 2016 fell to just 10.
That doesn’t mean there’s any lack of grass root activity. ‘Thousands
of community groups across the UK are developing practical, positive examples
of the zero carbon transition, ranging from waste food cafés to community
energy schemes. While many of these community-scale projects are small, they
empower and connect people, help expand the political choices available, give people
a sense of agency and help normalise sustainable behaviours. The role of
intermediary organisations that connect and support grassroots projects is very
important in helping to scale up and replicate ideas’. So says the Centre for Alternative
Technology in it latest update on achieving ‘Zero Carbon Britain’. http://zerocarbonbritain.com/images/pdfs/ZeroCarbonBritain-MakingItHappen.pdf
It puts a
lot of stress of behavioural change. That is clearly important, but it has to
eventually add up to significant material change. A conference on energy change
options in Milton Keynes in February heard about some of the excellent local
initiatives backed by Community Energy
England, but they reported that the total capacity installed so far was only
188MW. Small compared to what is needed but a start. And maybe size doesn’t always
matter: at this stage it’s more about community engagement, which can lay the
basis for more things later. At least 30,000 people have invested in local
projects so far, via 222 community energy groups across the UK- 186 of them
being Community Benefit schemes- a form of co-op. Over 100 projects used PV
solar. https://communityenergyengland.org/pages/state-of-the-sector-report
The situation
is better though in Scotland, where the devolved governments 2020 target of
500MW of local projects has already been met. And it’s all very different in
Germany where prosumers and energy
co-ops are near to dominating the 100GW green energy market. But that may
change as FiT support is cut. Though the cultural changes won’t go away: so
maybe building on that is part of the way ahead. https://communityactionmk.org/projects/cape/mkenergyalliance/and
http://communityenergyengland.org/
Certainly the potential for local generation
is large. A report produced last year by CE Delft for green NGOs says that 19% of EU
electricity could be produced, with the right investment, by 2030, by ‘energy
citizens’, rising to 45% by 2050. Many more
households, organisations and small enterprises could produce their own energy,
supply demand-side flexibility or store energy in times of oversupply. It says
this isn’t limited to individuals, but can include farmers, community groups,
small business, and co-operatives. CE Delft Report and Excel files:
www.dropbox.com/sh/drlmoebtx0700dw/AAAeGjPdsNflqv7VK6cIFRFba?dl=0
Clearly, community energy is well developed
in parts of the EU, with 34% of renewable supply in Germany coming from
community schemes, and in Denmark 70-80% of wind turbines were community owned
in 2013- though that’s been falling due to support cuts and buy outs. It was
much harder in the UK, given even lower financial support levels, but, in a
UK-relaying of the Delf report, it was noted that in all , including Scotland, there were 5000 UK community energy groups,
and that community schemes create 12-13 times the community value than
privately owned schemes. So they were important to back. It
suggested the UK could get 44% of its electricity from them by 2050. A big
stretch from now, but a good target! Source: The UK Blue and Green coverage
of the FoE/Greenpeace/EREF/RESCoop backed study:
Community projects also make sense
elsewhere in the world, in developing countries in particular. Foreign aid
programmes can help, as with the UN backed Scaling
Up Renewable Energy
Project, if properly administered. Though the
Telegraph doesn’t like this sort of thing! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/12/hundreds-millions-british-aid-wasted-overseas-climate-change
Ethiopia, one of the
poorest nations in the world, has been one of the recipients of
climate related aid which has included support for a wind project. And, although
not all of this will be community based (there are some large hydro projects), interestingly,
Ethiopia has now usurped Egypt and South Africa
as Africa’s largest source of renewables capacity, with total renewable energy
capacity in the country jumping from 2,307MW in 2015 to 4,188 MW in 2016, more
than 10% of the continents total generation capacity of 38GW. Edies noted that is it is ‘now gearing up to
become the wind power capital of Africa, with its second Growth
and Transformation Plan,
a five-year strategy to reduce poverty and spur national development – pursuing
an increase of wind energy output from 324MW in 2015 to more than 17GW by
2020’.www.edie.net/news/10/Global-renewable-energy-revolution-2016-in-charts
The risk with development programmes is that
they will involve ‘top down’ mega schemes, requiring
large external funding sources, and leading to major local impacts but little
local participation or benefit. By
contrasts, smaller scale low impact renewable projects, for example using solar
or wind energy, can be locally owned and controlled are are much less likely to
be opposed. Indeed, they are likely to welcomed and promoted locally, hopefully
then providing bases for local enterprises and local economic and employment
gains. That fits in well with the UN’s Sustainable
Energy for All programme, which aims to increase access to energy,
renewables especially, at the local level, in Africa and elsewhere. http://www.se4all.org/
Localisation, whether led via communities or
local municipal authorities, can certainly work. That is a lesson learnt from
the EU experience with local ownership and local council energy projects,
in Germany especially, and is also now being demonstrated in the USA, with local
energy co-op and municipal projects catching on- and, as in Germany,
challenging the utilities: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/ugc/articles/2016/12/16/local-utilities-have-lost-local-control.html And
also see: http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-electricity-cooperatives-in-the-us-are-paving-the-way-for-a-renewable-future
Back in the UK, there are some good local community projects and
networks, and some support from the government and OFGEM: http://www.decentralized-energy.com/articles/2017/02/local-energy-by-and-for-the-community.html And also, crucially, from local councils: http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-detailed-report-30-examples-councils-delivering-decentralised-local-energy-revolution/ But there is still a way to go to
rival Germany and Denmark!
*The European
Federation of Renewable Energy Cooperatives represents 1,240 initiatives
and 650, 000 citizens. Its members have jointly invested €2 bn in 1GW of
renewable energy projects, with a combined annual turnover of up to € 950m: https://rescoop.eu/
