Welcome to the July newsletter! This month, our longstanding club Energy Local Bridport has appeared on BBC news, in a story prompted by a fresh UK government strategy on wind power.

Plus we hear from two rural areas who could directly benefit from changes to electricity trading rules (while we wait for the P441 modification consultation we're expecting and keep telling you about!).

‘Current electricity rules stop us from starting an Energy Local Club’ 

One of the reasons we’re campaigning for the P441 modification to electricity trading rules is to enable more larger renewable generators connected to primary substations to join Energy Local Clubs, where they are currently prevented from doing so.

For some communities, this is a frustrating barrier to lower bills and greater income for generators.

In an Energy Local club, under the current rules, the consumers and generators currently must be metered at the same voltage. Otherwise they cannot club together. We most commonly come across this with generators that are connected at 11kV and cannot join a club with households, which are connected at low voltage (LV).

This barrier affects some larger renewable installations but is also more of a problem in remote areas, where there tends to be less capacity on the network, meaning generators are often connected at 11KV rather than LV. An Energy Local Club can contribute to more efficient use of the network by incentivising households to consume more power as it's being generated. In areas with a weaker network, that could help avoid the need to reinforce electricity infrastructure, reducing costs for everyone.

You can read more about two community generators facing this situation in our article here.

P441 consultation: the latest

Any day, we’re expecting the details of the consultation on this important clarification and modification to the rules around electricity trading and local energy markets. We promise to let you know about this as soon as we know more!

If you want more information on why we’re campaigning for this, you can read more here.

Energy Local Bridport talks to BBC news online

The longstanding club Energy Local Bridport has this month featured on BBC news online as part of an article about the UK government's push for more wind energy.  

The club is based around a wind turbine owned by farmer Peter Bailey. 

Club secretary Pete West told the BBC: "We've got 50 householders that have been supplied for over five years now and none of them have left the scheme...

"There's a huge demand for local people to benefit from renewable energy and they are more likely to accept a wind turbine if they can be supplied with low-cost energy."

The news story was prompted by the release of the government's Onshore Wind Taskforce strategy.  The BBC reported that the government wants to see more benefit to communities who live in areas where wind turbines are installed. 

Energy Local Clubs can provide a mechanism for this. With our support, they're run by the community, lowering bills, keeping more money in the local area, and supporting local renewables. 

Exploring Energy Local as an option for your area

Are you interested in setting up some local renewable energy generation and/or an Energy Local Club, but need some funding to explore the options?

If you've already attended an Energy Local introductory call, you can talk to us about getting a free proposal for your circumstances in which we'd set out the costs of different steps in the process. If you want to go further, you may need to consider accessing some funding.

Our Energy Local accountant Jo says an informal community group may possibly be able to get a small amount of funding for mapping and modelling, providing the group has a bank account.  

Once a group gets further into the Energy Local process (eg forming an Energy Local club) then it will be easier to access funding if the group is either a society (such as a community benefit society or co-op) or a CIC (Community Interest Company).

*Please note that any Energy Local Club cooperative has to be run separately using the Energy Local co-operative’s constitution – it cannot be done through a community group’s existing co-operative or society structure.*

Community Energy England provides information on obtaining funding here and Community Energy Scotland here. Community Energy Wales shares funding opportunities with members and you can join here.

There are also free funding finders such as this one from Charity Excellence and local councils can often point you in the right direction. Popular sources of funding include the National Lottery and the Energy Redress Scheme.