Fwd: Please Support the Local Electricity Bill
Tony Dawes
Dear Sustainable Bungay,
Change happens when people come together over shared principles. The UK’s community energy sector is in dire need of reform.
We are campaigning for a new law that would turn things around. Our solution, the Local Electricity Bill, is currently supported by Transition Network, 114 Transition Towns across the UK and 238 MPs in Parliament.
The Bill is also supported by a growing network of local and national organisations including: Greenpeace, RSPB, WWF, Friends of the Earth, Community Energy England, Good Energy, Energy Saving Trust, Renewable Energy Association and many more.
Community Energy in 2020 generated less than a tenth of what the Government projected in a report in 2014. This is because, by the report’s own admission, there is no “stable policy and regulatory framework with respect to community entrants and their potential partners”.
Seeing the Bill enacted would increase community renewable energy from its current 280 megawatts to 6,000 megawatts, taking it from less than 0.5% of the UK’s generating capacity to 10% - a massive surge. 3 million tonnes of carbon emissions would be saved each year, roughly equivalent to twice the emissions from all UK domestic flights.
At the moment, community energy organisations are collapsing because revenue streams are extremely hard to come by, and the setup and running costs of selling the electricity they generate to their local communities are between half a million and a million pounds (IPPR’s City Report) – a price hardly realistic or proportionate. Community energy is unique in its potential to add social, environmental and economic value to communities throughout the UK. It has led to the building of parks and libraries, the setting up of local energy efficiency schemes, local grant making, support for local charities and much more - yet any organisation looking to enter the sector faces a constant uphill battle.
In order to unlock community energy’s great potential, the costs of selling electricity locally need to be made scalable to the size of the operation. This simple change would lead to many more local renewables projects springing up all over the UK, and prospering where they currently exist. It would significantly help the UK in its transition to renewable energy, and communities would benefit substantially in the process.
The Local Electricity Bill would achieve exactly this by establishing a Right to Local Supply; small scale renewable energy projects would be able to apply for licenses to sell their electricity locally, and pay proportionate costs to do so. The Bill already has the backing of well over a third of the House of Commons – winning this campaign is within our grasp. For it to be successfully passed into law, more support is needed both in and out of Parliament.
Would Sustainable Bungay please add their name to the list of organisations that support the Bill? Your support, and the support of more organisations like you will be crucial in achieving the change needed. To do this, please reply to this email with a simple ‘yes’.
If you would like more information please let me know. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Rupert
Meadows
Campaigner
07557 805 425
8 Delancey Passage, London, NW1 7NN