Work With Us: Councils and Public Bodies
Energy4All successfully builds renewable energy partnerships between communities and public sector services including local councils.
The public sector can provide brilliant opportunities for community energy schemes. There are a large number of freehold properties to potentially use, these are long-term assets and tend to be low risk.
Community energy projects can save the public sector considerable sums of money, generate considerable benefit to the community and build a vibrant community enterprise sector tackling climate change. Key benefits include:
- Delivery of more renewable energy;
- Provision of supportive capital from the public for investment;
- The resource of volunteers, often passionate about climate change and very skilled and willing to engage in important but difficult to deliver projects such as roof top solar community buildings;
- Trust – which can be absent between the public and the energy sector and often strained between the public and local/national government;
- Public participation, engagement and advocacy;
- Support for local benefit and development.
Hosting community-owned infrastructure
Public buildings can host community-owned infrastructure. For example, Edinburgh Community Solar Co-operative has installed solar panels on schools, community centres and leisure centres across the city. The panels are entirely managed by the energy co-operative and the public buildings benefit from a reduced rate of electricity: they are estimated to have saved Edinburgh Council more than £1 million since the establishment of the co-op in 2007.
Reading Community Energy Society work across a hybrid of publicly and privately owned sites: they have installed solar arrays on the local library and are working with the council to install on the bus depot, but have also worked closely with Reading University and three churches.
Direct involvement in the energy society
Some councils want more direct involvement to meet their climate targets and bring benefits to their local area. North Lincolnshire Council approached Energy4All with a project in mind and a Towns Fund grant to utilise, and in 2023 North Lincolnshire Community Energy (NLCE) was launched.
North Lincolnshire Council are major stakeholders in this community energy project, supporting grants, introducing the sites on which to install solar arrays, and investing in the co-operative but allowing the community to direct and manage. They won the Supportive Local Authority Award at the CEE Awards 2023.
The project raised £700,000 in it's latest public share offer and they now employ a Community Engagement Co-ordinator to build local engagement.
The way each project evolves is unique. Energy4All are experienced in brokering and managing these partnerships and we would like to hear from council's or public sector organisations/host buildings who are interested in working together to meet their goals and benefit their community.