Renewable energy deep dive biannual recommendations update 2 - Community and local energy

Recommendation    

We will scale up resources to support community and local renewable energy in Wales including:

a.    From the Welsh Government Energy Service with staff and financial support to ensure coverage for community owned heat, energy efficiency and transport project development (with continuation for renewable electricity) and support for shared ownership
b.    Action from government to encourage private developers to include options for shared local and community ownership including through tenders issued on public land.
c.    Welsh Government funding to build additional capacity in community enterprises to help them start to scale their work and mentor smaller organisations, to create a larger, sustainable sector.
 

Key highlights / milestones    

This recommendation continues to progress well with continued support for community and local energy from the Welsh Government.

Highlights over the last 6 months include:

• CEW’s recruitment of a new team, which will support the continued implementation of this recommendation;
• Continuing work with CEW and WGES to provide guidance on the benefits from communities having access to the public estate.

Next steps towards completion

Priorities over the next 6 months include:

• Developing plans with the newly appointed Welsh Government Energy Service to support communities in engaging with private developers;
• Considering options for funding resource grants to community groups to employ people locally to speed up the delivery of existing projects and start to develop new work;
• Considering how additional funding to Community Energy Wales, could support communities to engage directly with the Local Area Energy Plans being developed by all local authorities, to support expansion of community energy and the development of SLES within the plans;
• Using the above to ensure that community voices are directly heard and help shape the plan development, as well as communities understanding the opportunities for locally led action the plans will identify.
   

Recommendation  

CEW & Publicly Owned Developer (Ynni Cymru)
We will ensure that the community owned sector is involved and gains input into Ynni Cymru considering the following 3 options:

a.    The community energy sector has a stake in the publicly owned developer 
b.    WG invest in an existing community energy organisation to deliver this work e.g., YnNi Teg, Egni or a Coop of Energy Coops
c.    WG invest in both the publicly owned energy developer and a community owned energy developer = two bodies with resource to develop projects.

Key highlights / milestones 

Key highlights include:

• Discussions between the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru on working towards the creation of Ynni Cymru. 
• Welsh Government Ministers agreeing the scope and scale of the publicly owned renewable energy developer.

Next steps towards completion

Over the next 6 months our priority actions include:

• As these separate strands of activity continue, we will engage with the community sector. 

Recommendation    

We will improve access to the public estate for the community energy sector via (a) community enterprises have rights to first proposal if not developed by a public body (b) structuring tendering processes to favour socially minded projects / community schemes.

Key highlights / milestones    

We have completed the review of opportunities across the Welsh Government Woodland Estate. We are progressing early feasibility of the most promising sites as we continue to prepare for the company’s launch in April 2024. The community non-exec Director on our Board continues to challenge the programme to consider community involvement. 

Once the developer is established, we will work with NRW and communities to identify areas of the estate that may be of interest to communities and ensure the principles behind any tender exercise support social/community outcomes. 

As Local Area Energy Plans are developed, these will provide a solid basis for identification of further potential joint projects for public bodies and the communities in the area. 

The outcome of those considerations should result in improved access to the public estate for the community energy sector, particularly when supported by the Energy Service to highlight the benefits of such cooperations.
 

Next steps towards completion

We expect to be in a position to develop this work later in 2024 following the establishment of the company.

Recommendation    

We will finalise and publicise the guidance on shared ownership, including what meets the definition of 'shared ownership', and work closely with private developers to maximise impact. We will publish the guidance in spring 2022.

Key highlights / milestones    

Reporting of our local ownership targets will be reported in our regular Energy Generation in Wales publication

Next steps towards completion

This recommendation is complete.