Community Energy has ‘untapped potential’ says new Net Zero Report

Ynni Cymunedol Cymru / Community Energy Wales has warmly welcomed a report from the Net Zero Challenge Group outlining how Wales could meet energy needs whilst phasing out fossil fuels by 2035.

The report, published as one of a series of seven, outlines the changes needed to meet government targets for net zero. It makes the case that community energy has vast untapped potential and suggests ways in which that potential can be realised.

The report recommends a baseline for community benefit funds from private energy projects, the creation of a Wales wealth fund to invest in future community energy projects and places community engagement as an integral part of reaching net zero.

It also acknowledges the barriers that community energy projects face, pointing especially to how unlocking local trade – where community owned energy generators could sell the energy they produced locally at a lower price – would help tackle rising energy costs and fuel poverty as well as having wider positive impacts on communities.

Further recommendations include an expanded advisory service for new starters; a strengthening of the Welsh government’s guidance, and improving the shared ownership offer from commercial developers to communities; and support for innovative finance models for the community energy sector.

Agency

Ben Ferguson and Leanne Wood, Co-executive Directors of Ynni Cymunedol Cymru said: “We urge both the UK and the Welsh governments to act urgently on the recommendations in this important and welcome report.

“If enacted, the recommendations in this report would unlock the potential of community energy as well as growing community ownership of energy assets. That ownership comes with agency. It means people being able to decide what happens in their local area, as well as what happens with their energy, making choices and taking actions to reduce their energy costs.

“It would mean that Welsh communities can organise and start to decarbonise their local energy systems for themselves while keeping the benefits of doing so locally, locking them into their communities for future generations. Instead of feeling hopeless about rising energy bills and declining community facilities, or being forced to passively accept ‘smart’ tariffs and solutions offered by the energy market oligopoly, community energy enables people to act to make beneficial changes for themselves.

“Big changes to our energy system are on the way as we move away from fossil fuels and use more green energy.  If energy customers and people in communites are to make the most of the opportunities that come with decarbonisation, community energy is key.

“It’s heartening to see the barriers that communities face to gain access to this agency reflected in the report, with real, practical means to overcome those barriers.

“Having community energy at the heart of a clean energy transition is an opportunity for Welsh communities to break ties with past economic development models that have entrenched inequality, extraction and poverty in to our system. This is an exciting chance to break that cycle and build a successful green, local future with community-ownership playing an important role.”

To read the Net Zero Challenge Group Report click here.

To learn more about community energy, read Community Energy Wales’ State of the Sector report here.