Researching Community Renewable Energy: introduction and project results

1. Researching Community Renewable Energy: introduction and project results Energising Communities Workshop Oxford, June 2006 Prof. Gordon Walker (Lancaster University) Dr. Patrick Devine-Wright (Manchester University) Prof. Bob Evans (Northumbria University); Dr. Sue Hunter (De Montfort University) and Dr. Helen Fay (Lancaster Univ)

2. Aim of presentation • To summarise results from a 2 year academic research project (2004-2006) funded by Economic and Social Research Council’s Sustainable Technologies Programme

3. Key research questions • What are the drivers for community renewable energy policy and support? • How is the concept of community interpreted within different support programmes and actual projects on the ground? • What are the aims and outcomes of community initiatives and to what extent are expected outcomes being realised? • What generic lessons can be learnt from community level energy action?

4. Methodology • Compile a database of renewable projects supported/funded by programmes and networks • Profile ‘national’ community energy programmes and networks and interview key people involved • Case study 6 community renewable energy projects using regional and local level interviews and questionnaire surveys

5. Key Findings • There are now many examples of successful community renewable projects across the UK • Government support for such actions, as well as grassroots networks and NGO initiatives, have played an important role in stimulating activity • Diversity is a key aspect of community renewables - in relation to technology, management, participation and outcomes • This diversity needs to be better recognised and seen as an advantage, enabling ‘fit’ to a variety of local circumstances

6. Key Findings • Drivers for specific projects are diverse and often relate to local-scale problems • A ‘community’ renewable energy project is constituted by both the process of development and the local focus of outcomes • The relative weight given to each dimension varies from project to project • Nurturing and learning from the experiences of implementing technologies into varied local contexts is important for energy futures and continuing technology innovation

7. Key Findings • Our research suggests that community projects can achieve outcomes over and above carbon reduction - including greater public awareness, acceptance and social cohesion • However, these results are being achieved to varying degrees, dependent upon whether local people lead the project, whether there is already good social cohesion and where involvement and benefits are strongly collective in nature • Project development is characterised by many obstacles, demonstrating the need for ongoing advice and practical support to communities

8. Key Findings • Many projects integrate energy conservation, directly or indirectly, and this should become established practice for all future projects • Government support has been provided via multiple funding and support programmes - better coordination is now needed • There has been welcome recent government reinvestment in support programmes, but there is a lack of ambition, budgets are relatively small and insufficiently long term

9. Key Findings • Better learning and evaluation mechanisms need developing, supporting all parts of the UK including urban areas and making better links with household microgeneration • Much more can and should be done to make renewables standard practice in new build community developments, regeneration and refurbishment • Local authorities have been significant but inconsistent in their support for local projects. All should have policies and practices supporting community RE, integrated into regeneration and community development initiatives

10. Community Renewable Projects • When research started, lack of information on number and type of projects in existence • Database was constructed including all projects explicitly supported by ‘community-labelled programmes/networks’ of some form • 509 projects included (snapshot as of December 2004) from readily available info • Database available on project website • Information assumed to be valid and complete • Excludes: – projects without RE/DH installation involved as objective (not business plan/feasibility studies, awareness projects) • projects within programmes but outside ‘community’ funding stream (e.g. grants for households) • projects outside of programmes

11. Numbers of ‘Community’ Projects by Technology Note: Projects may involve more than one technology

12. Numbers of ‘Community Projects’ supported by each Programme or Network Note: a project maybe supported by more than one programme or network

13. An impressive profile of activity? • But not all successful, material, lasting or achieving objectives • Key questions: • Why has community-based localism in energy policy developed since late 1990s? • What does a ‘community’ approach mean, how is it defined and interpreted? • What are the aims of specific projects and to what extent are they being achieved?

14. Analysing Policy and Programmes • Community Programme or Network defined as: • Includes ‘community’ within its rationale/objectives • Ambitions extend beyond single projects and active in this respect • Involves promotion, support, capital or project development for renewable energy production or district heating both governmental and non-governmental • 12 programmes identified in September 2004 at the ‘national’ level • 23 in-depth interviews conducted with key people involved in setting up, overseeing, running programmes and networks

16. Profile of Programmes and Networks • Complex and differentiated with overlapping boundaries • Mix of Government departments, quangos, agencies, NGOs evolving over time • Different roles: originators, funders, managers, partners • Different structures and scales • Trend towards ‘regionalisation’ of delivery

17. Diverse structures/scales • National responsive capital funding programmes differentiated by technology (Clear Skies, Community Energy, EST PV) • Sub-regional proactive support teams ‘brokering’ partnerships and projects (CRI - England) • Integrated national capital funding and proactive support/brokering (Scottish CHRI) • Support through networks of groups/individuals sharing information, expertise, best practice, experience (CAFÉ, REIC, Energy21, Solar Clubs) • ‘Commonwealthof cooperatives’ (Energy4All)

18. 1. Drivers and Motivations • Multiple and differentiated between programmes/interviewees, explicit and implicit 1. Instrumental • stimulation/support of market (state-aid rules) • development of standards and technical skills • gaining planning permission • regeneration (rural) and social inclusion/cohesion 2. Normative/ethical • principles of localism (‘bringing people together’) • ownership and cooperative models • ethical investment • public education about energy (information deficit) 3. Rhetorical • community as good politics

19. Context for Emergence of Community Energy Initiatives: late 70s COMMUNITY ENERGY DRIVERS INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE NGO/GRASSROOTS principles, action, demonstration

20. Context for Emergence of Community Energy Initiatives: late 90s RURAL REGENERATION Diversification Cohesion SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES LA21, resilience, participation ETHICAL INVESTMENT AND CSR COMMUNITY ENERGY DRIVERS ENERGY POLICY Climate Change/RE targets Market needs Skills needs Planning Obstacles INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE NGO/GRASSROOTS principles, action, demonstration

21. ‘Well the fundamental motivation from the Executive’s side is to stimulate the market in renewables’ ‘First of all it’s bringing the community together, and I think anything that brings the community closer together is a good thing’ ‘The main aim of the programme was to produce standards and certify contractors, increase awareness and uptake of the technologies’ ‘There was a growing backlash against specifically large scale wind farms and they recognised that some work on hearts and minds was needed and the best way of doing that work was through working at a community level’ ‘…you know, root and branch, change the way we approach energy and as a result, the way we live our lives and that’s not going to happen as a result of a marketing campaign, that’s going to happen only if we embed the importance, the methods of how to approach it, and approaches to action within the community, and hence the importance of community action’

22. Reflections on multiple drivers • Our view is that the shift to community based localism does not represent a fundamental ‘paradigm’ shift in the governance of energy and climate change towards new goals, norms or values • For example: - Away from the market-based, large-scale project development approach characteristic of NFFO policy in 1990s - Towards a vision of multi-level governance emphasising collaboration, participation and smaller(er)-scale, decentralised development • Instead it arises from the coalescence of diverse, largely instrumental policy drivers around the notion of ‘community’

23. 2. Multiple conceptions of community • As embedded within objectives and operation of programmes/networks: • as ‘not for profit’ organisation (legal rationale) • as a group of buildings (physical rationale) • as investors and entrepreneurs (market rationale) • as effective/capable (capacity rationale) • as catalysts for social change (transformative rationale) • as aerosol (marketing rationale)

24. ‘the programme is called community energy, because obviously it is about linking different buildings and different constituent partners within the community together in one heating system’ Q: How has community been defined? ‘We are having to make that up as we go along. As far as the Oxfordshire project is concerned, we will probably define it as people living between Oxford, Swindon and perhaps extending it slightly into Wiltshire as well’ ‘We have measured ‘community’ roughly .. There is no set definition of community within the programme… they have taken each case on its merits, without using a points system, just using rules of thumb. The only restriction is that they have to be not-for-profit and be a legal entity’

25. “it’s actually very difficult to define community, what is a community project, because I think it represents a spectrum, and I get frustrated when, particularly on the renewable energy side, people say a community project is one that, where the wind turbine is owned by the community, and actually I think that’s such a small percentage, and it also devalues the whole wealth of community projects, community involvement, activities that aren’t actually around projects where the community owns something…might be just that the community have been actively involved, and I think that approaches to community participation have to recognise that wide spectrum”

26. 3. Evaluating the ‘architecture’ of national programmes and networks • Little evidence of coherent, planned strategy within energy policy for community level renewable energy • Diversity of approaches and structures could suggest: • Fragmented, incoherent, muddled situation? • Organic reflection of needs and complexity of community renewables driven by a range of actors across very different localities and regions?

27. On the impacts of ambiguity • ‘Community renewable energy’ is not one thing or one category • It is a ‘space’ with malleable and indistinct boundaries which is given meaning, filled and experimented with by different actors to different strategic and pragmatic ends • This ambiguity may have both positive and negative consequences, short and long term: • Allows flexibility at local level to suit local circumstances • Could act corrosively to undermine principles of collective action and participation

28. Policy level conclusions • Community RE appeared in government policy as a consequence of multiple policy and grassroots discourses connecting around a ‘community’ label • When ‘top-down’ energy (and rural) policy problems of the late 1990s, connected within longer standing ‘bottom-up’ process-orientated principles and practice • Institutional architecture reflects: • plurality of discourses, interests & actors • plurality of technologies and scales of deployment • incremental, chaotic evolution rather than ‘grand plan’, in part because of this plurality

29. Policy level conclusions • Coalescence is tenuous, with an uncertain future • In our view, ambiguity of definition is a virtue not a vice • May be a temptation to ‘rationalise’ support programmes, however, this may prove counter-productive if matched with inflexibility in approach and definition • Diversity in activity is a key theme of local energy action - which will be explored further in the second project presentation this afternoon

30. Thankyou • Visit the website (and the database): http://geography.lancs.ac.uk/cei/communityenergy.htm • Email: pdwright@manchester.ac.uk