Empowering community capacity through the Local Power Plan

National ambition, local empowerment

In the Secretary of State’s foreword to the Local Power Plan, the vision of power owned and controlled by communities is front and centre.

This is about working hand in hand with community groups, local authorities and the devolved governments right across the UK to realise a bottom-up vision not just of publicly owned power, but of power owned and controlled by communities themselves.

– Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero

Realising a bottom-up approach to the energy transition is a goal shared by many of the places which have been involved in Innovate UK’s Net Zero Living Programme.

The recent publication Communities Driving Change demonstrates how these projects have taken innovative approaches to ensure communities are at the heart of local transitions, while guidance like a Force for Fairness is empowering local authorities to embed just transition considerations into their net zero planning and delivery.

Now, with the launch of the Local Power Plan, local authorities involved in the Net Zero Living Programme are considering how bold national ambition can help accelerate the place-based decarbonisation they’ve been championing.

Facilitating public-community partnerships is key

The UK community energy sector has a successful track record of working in partnership with local authorities, from installing solar PV on public buildings to delivering energy advice services. Examples include Three Rivers District Council, which through the Net Zero Living Programme has worked in partnership with Grand Union Community Energy to co-deliver projects and embed community energy into the council’s decarbonisation strategy.

In the policy group discussion, local authorities welcomed the commitment in the Local Power Plan to continuing and growing this model of public-community through the Partnership Fund, which will back joint local government and community energy group projects.

The signing of memoranda of understanding (MOUs) between Great British Energy and combined authorities to develop these partnership funds is an important signal for local authorities that they will be empowered to work together with community energy organisations to grow projects in their areas.

This is a positive signal for local authorities that partnership with the community sector will be empowered by the Local Power Plan.

Ensuring places don’t get left behind

While the partnership fund is a positive signal for scaling community energy through collaboration, it also underscores the need for careful policy to ensure places aren’t left behind.

The Local Power Plan signals a clear intent to work with combined authorities to deliver support, including the Mayoral Renewables Fund and the MOUs to develop partnership funds. While Local Government Reorganisation in England will bring more places under strategic authority umbrellas, local authorities that have been involved in the Net Zero Living Programme want to understand how they can become a development partner for Great British Energy without the need to wait for reorganisation.

The Programme has seen work by the likes of Leicestershire County Council and Essex County Council to identify and develop community energy pipelines which, with the support of the Local Power Plan, could be harnessed further to scale the sector.

For Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, understanding how partnership funding and other models for scaling community energy will be delivered in their nations is vital for local authorities seeking to grow community energy capacity.

Further details about the delivery of the Local Power Plan and how it will empower local authorities in all places across the UK will be welcomed by the local authorities taking part in the Net Zero Living Programme.

Growing pipelines to attract finance

The importance of investable, local project pipelines has been a key theme of the Programme.

“The Net Zero Living Programme has shown that local and regional authorities are uniquely placed to build a vision with their communities for how to transition to net zero, and then work to attract the public and private investment needed to realise it.” – Investing in Places, Learnings from the Net Zero Living Programme for local net zero planning and attracting investment.

The Local Power Plan’s £1 billion commitment to community energy is a clear sign to local markets of the opportunity to develop local and community projects that can deliver community wealth.

Local authorities and the public sector also have a key role to play in the development of pipelines of investable local and community energy projects. Public buildings are a key opportunity for pipeline development. As the details of the Local Power Plan are agreed and published, the local authorities in the policy group workshop highlighted that guidance for local authorities seeking to aggregate their project pipelines would help to create more investable propositions.

Supporting local authorities to aggregate their local energy pipelines can help to create more compelling business cases for investment, ensure the best sites aren’t cherry-picked and help to identify opportunities for community energy collaboration. The local authorities noted that the Local Power Plan’s commitment to standardising processes and creating templates is an opportunity to support local authorities in this area.

Another area where local authorities feel the Local Power Plan offers an opportunity to support pipeline development is providing guidance and clarity on Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). It was noted that in the updated national guidance for PPAs for school sites, new agreements between schools and community energy organisations were paused while the Government consults on public sector PPAs.

This delay and uncertain future have stifled the development of community energy projects at school sites, a highly successful model for the community energy sector. Local authorities are eager to receive updated guidance as quickly as possible, and the Local Power Plan is an opportunity to help officers navigate new, future approaches for installing community-owned energy assets at public sector sites.

Community capability critical to success

At the workshop, it was raised that a community’s ability to participate in and benefit from the energy transition depends on the skills and resources available locally from people and organisations. The result is a large disparity in community energy capacity from place to place, creating a postcode lottery for communities who want greater control of and benefits from projects in their places.

Projects in the Net Zero Living Programme have been exploring how place-based approaches can support the upskilling of people and community organisations. For example, GreenerFuture Leicestershire delivered online training, networking forums and advisory services as part of its project to help secure long-term capacity growth in the local community energy sector.

Participants in the policy group workshop welcomed the Local Power Plan commitment to growing community capacity to own and benefit from energy projects. Steps to do this include funding, training and upskilling programmes, exploring models for shared ownership of commercial projects, and launching a Community Energy in a Box toolkit to standardise models and resources.

For local authorities, these are exciting propositions, but more detail on how this capacity-building is delivered is key to getting the support right. This includes how standardised support and local needs will be balanced and the roles of Net Zero Hubs (in England) and devolved agencies for delivering programmes.

Strong signals and an opportunity to empower

The local authorities engaged in the Net Zero Living Programme understand the importance of community energy for realising net zero in a quick and equitable fashion. A £1 billion commitment to supporting local and community energy is a step change and one welcomed by the group.

As Great British Energy continues to develop the details of how the plan will deliver support, there are opportunities to ensure all local authorities in the UK can become development partners of the Local Power Plan, building on the excellent work already being done in places across the UK to support community energy growth.

Whether through public-community partnership, pipeline mapping or community capacity building, places in the Net Zero Living Programme partners have been taking a leading role in the development of community energy in their areas. Those implementing the aspirations in the Local Power Plan can both learn from and supercharge these approaches going forward.