Community Energy Literature Review

As a first step towards narrowing the focus of this review, I will assume the importance of the work done by community energy organizations in the UK without seeking to prove it, though I do accept that the issue is open to debate. We will look at the risks to the sector referred to earlier, beginning with a quotation from Community Energy England’s   2017 report: “Critical to the success of community renewables over preceding years has been governmental support through early stage funding. It was found that the projects included in this study utilised £1.9m in development funding, stimulating investment of over £190m towards project financing. Much of this early stage funding is no longer available in England (e.g. the Urban Community Energy Fund (UCEF), limiting opportunities for new projects, future growth and investment in the sector. The removal of support mechanisms, including generation subsidies and tax incentives for investors, has had a strong impact on project viabil

According to Community Energy England, a not for profit organization which describes itself as the voice of the community energy sector,  “Community energy refers to the delivery of community led renewable energy, energy demand reduction and energy supply projects, whether wholly owned and/or controlled by communities or through partnership with commercial or public sector partners.” ( https://communityenergyengland.org / ) In a report published in 2017, it referred to  “222 community energy organizations  throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland involved in 269 distinct energy activities …[owning] 121 MW of energy capacity, which has generated 265 GWh of energy since 2002”.  The report points out that the “self-reported nature of the exercise means that the study is not exhaustive” (another estimate of the number of community energy organizations will be given below) and goes on to claim that  “The sector is at risk: unprecedented reductions and early retractions of subsid