There’s a lot happening in the community energy world and with BWCE. So, we plan to run Q&As over the next two newsletters on government policy and BWCE’s plans to give you a chance to find out more. For the first Q&A in the next newsletter in April, tell us what you want to know about central government’s community energy policy.
As BWCE and through our links with Community Energy England, we have been liaising with policy makers across a number of key developments relevant to BWCE’s work, including:
The government’s Local Power Plan, to be delivered by GB Energy, with grant and loan funding for Local Authorities and community energy to support new community renewables projects. If successful, this programme will greatly expand the current Community Energy Fund that was just recently extended for another year (see update).
We have been engaging with the process of developing the Local Power Plan since before the election and are now waiting to see what comes out of the spending review in June to understand the overall impact this programme will have.
As co-chair of the ministerial advisory group on community energy we hope to continue to support the continued development and implementation of government support for community energy.
An ongoing House of Commons Select Committee enquiry into how to unlock greater scale in community energy. We will be giving oral evidence to the committee and will be hosting key members of the committee later in April. We are hoping the committee’s report will be influential in strengthening community energy policy in the future.
An industry working group developing proposals for enabling local renewable energy projects to sell electricity directly to local consumers and so create viable local energy markets. We are members of the working group. But we are also developing pilots linked to new ground mount solar projects that will offer cheaper solar electricity to local households and test the degree to which this motivates consumers to shift demand away from the times when electricity is most expensive and most carbon intensive.
So what do you want to know more about? Send your questions to our MD Pete Capener and he will look to answer as many questions as possible in our April newsletter.
In April’s newsletter we will be asking for questions on BWCE’s plans which Pete will then address in May’s newsletter.
Deadline for inclusion in the April newsletter: Wed 9th April 2025.
