Councillors: Co-sign our letter backing
community energy
Community-owned energy can address many of the problems our energy sector currently faces. It brings down bills, generates clean energy and builds strong communities – giving local people a real say and stake in their energy supply.
Last year, the Government announced a new Community Energy Fund, which committed £10m over two years in support of the community energy sector. But this isn’t enough after years of neglect of the sector.
Labour meanwhile have committed £3.3bn to fund and support community energy via councils and community energy groups, creating up to a million new owners of energy across Britain.
We're asking councillors to sign our joint letter to the Energy Secretary, urging Government to increase their investment in community energy to bring down bills and deliver clean, green, renewable energy. Will you be one of them, and add your name now?
Claire Coutinho MP
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
1 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0ET
Dear Secretary of State,
As Labour and Labour & Co-operative Councillors, we are writing to you about supporting the expansion of community energy projects in the UK.
For too long, our energy has been produced and owned abroad – enriching oligarchs and multinational oil and gas companies at the expense of UK consumers. Community energy, where local people own and control renewable projects like wind turbines and solar farms, instead sees those profits kept locally: boosting the local economy, providing good local jobs, and reducing energy bills.
Community energy doesn’t just empower local people by helping them take control of their local energy supply: it can also help to tackle both the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis by offering cheaper, cleaner energy options to people across the country. It also improves our energy security at a time of increasing turmoil on the international energy markets, by increasing the proportion of our energy produced and owned right here in the UK.
Recently, the Government announced it would invest £10m in a new national Community Energy Fund. While this is a step in the right direction, it does not do nearly enough to reverse the damage caused by how the sector, in the words of the Government’s former Energy Minister and Net Zero Tsar, has been “neglected by Government”.
The Labour Party recently announced as part of its Local Power Plan that it would invest £3.3bn in local renewable energy generation. That scale of investment would enable hundreds more communities across the country to benefit from community energy, and rapidly increase our domestic clean energy capacity.
We are writing to you to ask, as the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if you would commit to increasing the level of funding available for community energy schemes and support provided to local authorities to promote community energy locally.
There has never been a better time to invest in cheap, clean energy produced and owned right here in the UK. With further support, we can unleash the vast potential of community energy and secure a greener, fairer future for our communities.
We look forward to your response.
502 signatures
Help us reach 500
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