Dear Energy Secretary...

Dear Secretary of State Davey,

I am pleased that you have been appointed as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. It is great that your strong views on the environment led you into politics, and you have been rightly praised for your approach to championing consumers in your last post as Consumer Affairs Minister.

So you are clearly up for putting the power system back in the hands of the people. Forum for the Future and The Co-operative Group have formed a community energy coalition with UK civil society groups to do just that. We include The National Trust, Church of England, The WI, Campaign to Protect Rural England and Consumer Focus and believe that the communities have a really significant role to play in repowering Britain. We are committed to promoting the benefits of community energy to our 12 million members and to work with you to dramatically scale up the community energy sector.

Our coalition launched its vision for community energy in 2020 this week and would be delighted to meet with you to share our recommendations for delivering a clean energy future at one of the growing number of community projects in the UK. I am really pleased to see that you are already championing community action and recently said “when people club together, they can get things cheaper. Or afford better quality. So, how can Government help people come together to do just that – to cut their bills and act to help each other, in these challenging economic times?” We believe that community energy can and should be your answer.

Sadly, the UK has only the bravest of pioneers to thank for having any community energy at all right now. The UK produces 8% of its electricity from renewables but under 1% of this is from community owned schemes. But that needn’t be the case. Germany produces 20% of its electricity from renewables and of that some 25% comes from communities. In Denmark this is even higher. With only a bit of a nudge, UK communities could produce 10% of its renewable electricity within a few years. That would be a great achievement. As Ruth Bond, the Chair of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes said to me, “we may be behind the Germans but we know how to do it even better than them.” Let’s get going.

Yours sincerely,

Will Dawson

Principal Advisor – Energy and Finance, Forum for the Future

• Read the blog about the vision for community energy here.
• Read more about the Discover Community Energy project here.