Enabling Community Energy

Simon Fell Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this important debate on an issue that could fundamentally change not just the electricity market, but people’s ability to access cheap, sustainable and locally produced energy across the whole of the UK.

I was really pleased to be able to support my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) in his efforts to enact the Local Electricity Bill in the last Session. To my very inexperienced eye, the Bill appeared to be a win-win. It drove the creation of new local electricity markets, lowered prices for consumers and created a path for households and businesses to access renewable and sustainable energy in a new way. A 2014 Department of Energy and Climate Change report on community renewable energy suggested that by last year—2020—3,000 MW of generating capacity could have been in place. Instead, we generate around 278 MW from community renewable energy.

The scale of the opportunity here is absolutely vast, and we need only look across to our neighbours in Europe to see the prize on offer. In Germany, there are over 1,000 community-based supply companies producing renewable energy. In that country, the four large utilities control only 40% of the market, which drives real consumer choice and consumer benefit. Unleashing community energy would enable local economic resilience in communities across the UK. Bypassing the large utilities would allow them to keep significant value and economic returns within their own economies. It would create skilled local jobs, more viable local businesses and stronger local bonds. I would argue that the necessary reforms are not just about cheaper electricity bills; they are about helping us get to net zero too. To be honest, I see them as a form of levelling up in action.

Last year, I was pleased to visit Hobkin Ground Farm in the Lickle valley in my constituency. Megan and Mark want to run a low-impact, sustainable farm, leaving as little mark on the environment as possible in their farming. In pursuit of that, they have installed a hydro generator. They power their own farm and a couple of cottages, largely removing themselves from the electricity grid. They would like to go further, but the cost of connection is prohibitive for them. Across the valley from them in Broughton-in-Furness is another project, which aims to bring together local residents in a co-operative to buy renewable electricity from a hydro plant at Logan Gill, allowing them to benefit from cleaner air and cheaper energy. Potentially 400 customers could benefit, saving about 20% off their electricity bills.

The model is great, and I praise local residents Jennifer Sanderson, Rob Dunphy and others, Cumbria Action for Sustainability, and Ellergreen Hydro for working together to deliver it. However, for the project to succeed, it is reliant on the benevolence of Octopus Energy, a nationally licensed and huge utility company, to turn the taps and get them going. If we enable the right to local supply, that ceases to be a problem.

Reforming market rules so that local and regional-sized renewable energy generators could sell their electricity direct to local customers would mean that my constituents in Broughton would no longer be reliant on having to choose from a few large national suppliers. They could go local and go sustainable. If we can achieve that, the effect will be to take community energy schemes, such as that one, from being a smattering of projects across the country to thousands. They currently generate only around 0.5% of the UK’s electricity, but let us think of the scale we could generate. With a few small changes, a thousand flowers could bloom. That will happen only if local community-owned interests are given a route to market.

I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will see the opportunity in community energy to be a tool in levelling up our local communities. I look forward to hearing her response.