Labour’s pledges on clean energy have been welcomed by campaigners including Community Energy England (CEE), the apex for renewable energy co-ops.
CEE said the new government has ”real plans to turbocharge community energy”, pointing to its Local Power Plan which pledges up to £400m a year in low interest loans to communities to develop and build community-owned projects, alongside £600m a year in grants to local authorities.
In its manifesto, Labour pledged: “We will invite communities to come forward with projects, and work with local leaders and devolved governments to ensure local people benefit directly from this energy production.”
CEE has also welcomed the decision by chancellor Rachel Reeves to end the de facto ban on new onshore wind developments, posting on X: “CEE has lobbied hard for this change, and we are delighted to see the new gov. acting immediately to make new onshore wind a reality.”
It is hoped Labour’s plan will deliver up to 8GW of new cheap, clean local power by 2030 – the equivalent of 2 nuclear power stations, powering 4.35 million homes. The goal is to create 20,000 new energy projects, 1 million new energy owners, and local economic, social and community benefits.
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Community energy will also be supported by plans to fix grid connections which are a major barrier to net zero and local projects, extend community shared ownership in commercial renewables projects, and moves to enable local supply so that communities can sell the energy they generate to local people.
The plan also includes a pledge to insulate millions of new homes, an area where there are a number of retrofit co-ops active.
CEE says it “will be working to help the sector grow with capacity building support through our Energy Learning Network. We will be looking at the long term financing solutions with expert NGOs and finance institutions.
“We will aim to encourage and support more community energy / local authority collaborations which will be key to making the most of this funding. We will be working to enable the other policies such as shared ownership and local supply to happen as soon as possible.”
