Love thy neighbour?

In light of the green tax reductions announced this week, indicating a pressure to move to a more regulated energy market, I was considering the influence that the ‘Big 6’ hold over the country, and what would happen if the market was decentralised. The notion of ‘community energy’ (CE) has been present in energy policy since around 2003 (with the Energy White Paper) although whether this has translated into an incentive for community energy projects or investment.

Community energy comes in various forms between the following three degrees of community involvement (Devine-Wright, 2005):

•  Information led – passive recipients
• Varying balances of partnership – between different stakeholders
• Ownership led – high local control

And is essentially a community coming together, either independently or working with private investors and/or public sectors to construct and operationalise RE on a small scale, to either use for community energy (usually schools or village halls etc) or to be sold back to the grid to reduce energy bills.

Other European countries, especially Denmark and Germany have a much higher community energy involvement than the UK. The ideas behind CE stem from issues in the 70s regarding local energy generation (Walker and Devine-Wright, 2008) advocating the ‘soft energy path’. In the 90s, there was a (marginal) ‘dash for wind’ which led to intense opposition to renewables by local communities, the CE occurred in response to this information deficit and perceived ideas (Walker et al., 2007).

Communities can have involvement in RE projects in many ways:

• Supporting the project and being well informed
• Allowing the project to go ahead (not oppose it at planning stage)
• Initiating the project through a group in the community finding investors
• Investing financially as a community
• Providing the manual construction for the infrastructure
• Administering and running the operations

However, the term ‘community’ is ambiguous as there can be communities of proximity and communities of interest (Walker, 2008). Also the parameters of community are hard to define, both socially and spatially therefore flexibility in policy is required, else the meaning of community is too constrained. Caution is required when approaching a project under the term ‘community’, as labelling it as such yet not fulfilling the perceived benefits may only increase resentment towards RE energy projects on a local scale.

In the UK, in 2001, the Community Renewables Initiative set up Local Support Teams in certain areas, and these teams had significant effects; such as more than double the applications to the Clear Skies initiative (a scheme to encourage communal/community renewable) compared to areas without the Local Support Teams (Walker and Devine-Wright, 2008). However, the Community Renewables Initiative – in its 5 year lifetime – only created 150 community projects, therefore its success is very questionable and if community energy is to be encouraged, better incentives and initiatives need to be conceived.

The benefits of community energy are shown by the example of Zschadraβ in south-east Germany where the community co-owned a local wind farm and fully owned a PV cell system, through a community club. The community energy concept was created there to deal with public spending – as energy was the second biggest expense. The school’s old oil burner was replaced with a 300MW woodchip burner which heats the school, gym, club house, bowling alley and administrative buildings, and the fuel is supplied by the residents. This community is estimated to become energy independent by 2050, and all the savings from reduced energy demand, increased efficiencies and on site renewables are passed on to the community (Musall and Kuik, 2011).

Criticisms of community energy include the assumption that all in the community will want to or be able to invest time or money into the project, whereas the reality may be that only the wealthier households could participate, therefore negating the community benefits. The project may attract only those who are already heavily involved in the community or those wishing to be involved in democratic debating (Hoffman and High-Pippert, 2005).

The increased levels of acceptance of RE associated with community energy does not necessarily translate to an increased support of large scale projects, however the potential for CE is large therefore this could propose a paradigm shift in the attitudes of renewable energy. The benefits associated with this system when run and organised correctly, and to suit each different community, would be desirable to all; increased cohesion, increased sustainability, lower energy bills, reliable supply and stronger engagement with local issues.

Here is a short video from last year, from the Community Energy Roundtable, it gives a few ideas of the benefits and challenges to the future of community energy.