The Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) recently launched a ‘Call for Evidence on Community Energy’ with the intention of collecting information to help them develop a Community Energy Strategy in the Autumn. The strategy will outline what Government and others could do to ensure community energy projects flourish and become a central part of the UK’s response to climate change and peak oil.

Ed Davey MP (the Secretary of State for Energy) has gone on record saying he wants nothing less than a ‘community energy revolution’. Hopefully the strategy will turn the positive rhetoric from himself and other ministers like Greg Barker, into tangible, practical, community friendly outcomes.

To this end I have, as BWCE’s chair, been working alongside other community practitioners to help DECC civil servants get their heads around community energy, what it is and what its potential might be. I am a member of Greg Barker’s Community Energy Contact Group (see here for information) and am on the steering group for DECC funded research into the potential for community energy.

The Call for Evidence represents an important opportunity for communities to tell Government what we think needs to happen, so don’t delay, follow this link and get involved!

It is encouraging to see government give serious attention to community energy and really try to understand what needs to be done to help support the rapid development of the sector. I hope the rhetoric and the strong support from politicians will feed through to the development of a strategy that clearly articulates what’s needed and an implementation plan that ensures that its delivered.

Dinners at Regen SW Green Energy Awards are always grand affairs, held for many years in the Assembly Rooms in Bath. Packed to the molded Georgian ceilings with the great and good from the renewable energy world. This year’s dinner was no exception and was made that much tastier by the fact that we won an award, for ‘Best Community Initiative’ in the South West.

Winning the award was doubly satisfying considering we held off stiff competition from two other excellent community projects: Totnes Renewable Energy Society and Cornwall Community Power

Last night we celebrated with key partners Bath & North East Somerset Council, SSE and Carbon Leapfrog who we were able to invite to the awards dinner as a thank you for their support.

We would like to dedicate our success (but sadly we can’t invite you all to a grand dinner) with everyone who has helped, invested, supported, worked and volunteered for Bath & West Community Energy over the last few years. You are all the reason we won – Thank you!

Pete Capener – Chair 21/11/12

BWCEs MD Jeff Kenna receives the RegenSW Award for Best Community Initiative

The first was the Settle Hydro project in Settle, North Yorkshire, the other the Torrs Hydro project which is sited in a very impressive river gorge in the middle of New Mills, Derbyshire.

Both projects were great to see and we’re hoping in the future to be generating some hydro power down here around Bath too.

John Lancaster

There have been two meetings of the group so far where Greg Barker has highlighted the key questions he would like to see addressed and the group has discussed at some length the Feed in Tariff (and the absence of a Community Tariff to date). The group will be looking at the Green Deal and the Renewable Heat Incentive at future meetings. Pete Capener says, “It is encouraging to see that both Government ministers and senior civil servants are keen to hear the community perspective. Though of course the test will be to see the degree to which discussion translates into supportive policy and practice.”

The Terms of Reference for the Contact Group are:

1. To support policy development within DECC to ensure that community perspectives are heard and included as appropriate; and,

2.  To help the Government identify the barriers to community energy delivering its full potential and the measures necessary to remove the barriers.

Follow this link for more information

Working to a very tight time schedule, as the money has to be spent by the end of March, a team of energy specialists have visited the schools to identify energy saving opportunities. After delving into boiler rooms, inspecting insulation and measuring thermal conductivity all over the school they have compiled a report. This shows that savings of between 20-60% are possible on the schools’ current energy bills (this includes the contribution from the solar PV).

The team have worked up initial proposals for BWCE to finance energy efficiency improvement packages. They have tested how these ideas could work in practice with our colleagues at the schools concerned, B&NES council and legal advisors Carbon Leapfrog. Conclusions suggest a business case may exist for BWCE at around half the schools surveyed.

Team leader Cathy Hough says “The team have also worked with schools to engage pupils and the local community in energy saving actions. This has included energy monitor loan schemes, curriculum linked projects, home energy questionnaires, whole school assemblies and energy roadshows. It has been a busy but productive few months! Once its completed the schools team look forward to sharing the final project report with you on the BWCE website.”