What is Community Energy?
At Energy4All we help to develop and manage community energy projects.
'Community Energy' happens when individuals decide to work together to collectively develop renewable energy projects: where decisions are made democratically, and ownership is shared, all with the aim of meeting their mutual goals for cleaner green energy, environmental protection and benefit to the local community.
The organisations that Energy4All support all generate their own source of renewable energy. This ranges from wind turbines, to rooftop solar PV, solar parks, hydropower and biomass generation. Members own the source of energy (sometimes wholly, and sometimes in shared ownership with a commercial or public sector organisation), they benefit in the form of returns on their investment, and the wider community can benefit from funding, local employment, energy education and more.
Community Energy England and Scotland found that in 2023, registered projects:
- had a combined 398MW capacity, this is the equivalent to powering 228,530 domestic homes without fossil fuels
- contributed £12.9 million to local economies
Lots of these groups go beyond generation: for example some of our projects began with the construction of solar panels or wind turbines, but now they do energy workshops in schools or and distribute their Community Benefit Funds to help energy efficiency projects. Other schemes might not own a renewable energy source, but instead focus on demand-side actions like retrofitting or energy literacy. One Energy4All co-op, Energy Prospects, was set up with the collaborative aim to help fund the early development of other energy projects. Community energy projects are diverse and dynamic, and that is their power!
Who is the community?
Most community energy groups are place-based: they have a village, town, city or region where their technology is based and where they aim to support.
But for renewable energy generating schemes that need to raise large sums of capital investment, sometimes in the millions of pounds, shares are often opened to a wider community to invest in. You might invest to become a member in multiple schemes around the UK. Groups often choose to prioritise local members, but they have a wider community of 'interest' as well as one of place, and this opens opportunities to have a much bigger impact in their community of place.
Whether an organisation registers as a Co-operative, a Community Benefit Society or another legal entity determines the rules it must follow. For our schemes, investment can start from as low as £50 to try to make them widely accessible, and it is capped at £100,000 to prevent large corporate investment.
What is the difference between community energy and an energy co-op?
Many community energy projects, including all Energy4All projects, are guided by co-operative principles and consider themselves part of the wider co-operative movement. For this reason, we refer to all of our energy societies as 'co-ops', although only some of them are registered as Co-operative Societies.
Friends of the Earth, REScoop and Energy Cities produced a handbook in 2020 if you would like to learn more.