Researching Community Renewable Energy: introduction and project results

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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)

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Aim of presentation

• To summarise results from a 2 year academic
  research project (2004-2006) funded by Economic
  and Social Research Councils Sustainable
  Technologies Programme

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Numbers of Community Projects by Technology
Note Projects may involve more than one
technology
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Numbers of Community Projects supported by each
Programme or Network
Note a project maybe supported by more than one
programme or network
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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?

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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

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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

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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)
• Commonwealth of cooperatives (Energy4All)

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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

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Context for Emergence of Community Energy
Initiatives late 70s
COMMUNITY ENERGY DRIVERS
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE
NGO/GRASSROOTS principles, action, demonstration
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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
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• Well the fundamental motivation from the
  Executives side is to stimulate the market in
  renewables
• First of all its 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 thats not going to happen as a
  result of a marketing campaign, thats 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

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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

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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)

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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
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its 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 thats such a
small percentage, and it also devalues the whole
wealth of community projects, community
involvement, activities that arent actually
around projects where the community owns
somethingmight be just that the community have
been actively involved, and I think that
approaches to community participation have to
recognise that wide spectrum
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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?

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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

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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

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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

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Thankyou

• Visit the website (and the database)
• http//geography.lancs.ac.uk/cei/communityenergy.h
  tm
• Email pdwright_at_manchester.ac.uk