It’s been a rough year for community energy. We’ve gone from thinking we were on the brink of a huge expansion of the movement, to wondering how we are going to be able to keep going at all. Government support (primarily through the feed-in tariff) has been vital to the success of community solar, wind and hydro projects, and so the cuts announced last autumn mean an end to the way we have done things up until now. Right now, most community energy groups are busy racing against the clock to get their final projects funded, built and plugged into the grid before deadlines hit. So 10:10 spent our time working out what we – as a movement – could do once those projects are out of the way. Since February, we have spoken with over 30 leading community energy groups and support organisations about the future of UK community energy. We focused on what potential new business models community groups might be able to use now that the feed-in tariff can no longer be relied on. These fascinating and inspiring conversations didn’t produce any silver bullets. But they did point to a whole host of new approaches communities can try out to maintain momentum behind the grassroots energy transition over the coming ‘lean years’.
10:10 3rd June 2016 read more »