By Dr Stephen Hall, Head of Ashden Awards
Across the UK, ‘local energy’ is on the rise. We’ve seen work to maximise the potential of small and medium scale renewables like solar and wind, through the roll out of electric heating, the electrification of transport, and the connection (via WiFi) of everything from your fridge to your car.
It seems to make intuitive sense. All these technologies together can act as lots of little batteries to store and release energy when needed. They can respond by using more or less power when the energy system needs it. Because ‘we’ can buy and own all this technology, ‘we’ can also gain some control over the energy system itself.
This opens up all sorts of possibilities – such as as the creation of tiny energy markets, where individuals can trade surplus and storage, or even gift them to others. But a key outcome could be new initiatives and services benefiting social housing tenants, and others facing danger from energy price shocks and fuel poverty.
Local energy can power a fairer society – but only if regulations and policies work towards that goal. For example, by making sure cheap local energy isn’t limited to those with the resources to buy up new generating systems and only share that energy among themselves. This scenario would leave the less well-off missing out on the benefits of new technology, but potentially also paying a higher price to keep our ‘legacy’ energy network on its feet.
What we need, are ways to maximise the benefits of local energy to everyone, so all homes can benefit from energy innovations. This is where a new crop of social, technical and commercial innovations come in which could mean a ‘tipping point’ for local energy. Here are just a few examples.
Emergent Energy are the UK’s first company to crack the problem of sharing solar power between flats. In the past, solar could be installed on flats and other multi occupancy buildings but could only power communal areas like stairwells and lifts, a solution that didn’t really work for anyone. Emergent Energy have been able to combine metering solutions, a private microgrid, and regulatory innovations, to ensure building owners can install solar on flats and residents can benefit from cheaper cleaner electricity. Emergent Energy will be expanding this model through the coming year and this quiet revolution could change the energy options for flats and multi-occupancy buildings forever.
Energise Barnsley are another example of where a little innovation can go a long way. Energise Barnsley are the largest local authority and community energy rooftop solar PV project in the UK and have been able to provide battery storage along with solar to residents of social housing. By provisioning battery storage as well as solar generation, far more of the energy generated locally can be used by the homeowners, leading to bigger bill savings and further opportunities for social housing to participate in smart energy markets such as demand side response.
Meanwhile, The Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust are bringing the costs of energy retrofits and smart energy technologies down by using their ‘retrofit credits’ scheme. This scheme goes to voluntary carbon markets, and allows companies to offset their emissions by buying credits which go directly to retrofitting social homes. These credits can be applied across the housing sector to bring the costs of clean energy technologies down even further.
What stands out from these three cases is not only the individual contribution they can make but how, together, they can lead to a tipping point in local energy where solar and other clean energy generation can be stored, traded, even shared and gifted so that energy innovation can benefit all communities.
It’s important to recognise the many benefits local energy schemes can bring, if action is targeted in the right way. These benefits go far beyond lowering our carbon emissions – they include better health and action on fuel poverty, as well as creating good green jobs in marginalised communities. For councils and housing associations in particular, these are all good reasons to be pro-active in supporting local energy.
The challenge for energy regulation and energy innovation funding is to find new market models and regulation that can make space for these innovations to thrive and benefit the missions of families in fuel poverty across the country, as well as the middle-class smart energy consumers currently spearheading consumer engagement with local energy.
The Ashden Awards will take place on the evening of Thurs 27 June in London during London Climate Action Week. Bookings: https://ashden.org/awards/ceremony/
Steve leads the development and delivery of the prestigious Ashden Awards which explore the latest challenges for global climate action and search for the best solutions in the world. In his previous work in academia he published extensively on sustainable energy systems, energy transitions, sustainable cities and climate policy and economics.
This article appeared in the .