Energy Bill

Steve Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

The Bill misses an opportunity to support community energy co-operatives. Brixton solar energy 1 was the country’s first urban energy generation co-operative and was set up by the local community in Brixton, working in co-operation with the local authority, Lambeth council. Solar power generation is not generally feasible on the majority of houses, because they might face the wrong way or suffer from shading from chimneys or other structures, or because the roofs are too small. Collective schemes, such as Brixton energy, are far better. They require partnership working. Solar panels are more likely to be financially viable when they are built on social housing blocks, schools or other public buildings, or on churches or businesses that have a large roof space facing the sun.

Brixton solar 1 was built on the roof of a social housing estate, Loughborough Park in Brixton. Brixton solar 2 is being built on another part of the same estate and a third scheme is planned for another estate in the area. The schemes are funded by community subscription and offer a 3% return to investors, most of whom are local. They are part-resourced by the local authority, which makes the buildings available.

Those projects tackle fuel poverty by offering lower energy prices to residents, who benefit from the feed-in tariff. They reduce carbon emissions by generating energy sustainably, and some of the profits are invested in schemes such as draught-busting, retrofitting, home energy audits and training on energy efficiency. In addition, they build social capital; they bring communities together and keep profits circulating in the local community in a way that does not happen with larger energy companies.

Instead of supporting such schemes, the Bill offers smaller community generators lower market prices for their power, making them less financially viable, and it fails to recognise the administration costs needed to run them. The Bill also ends the renewables obligation, which means that suppliers have no incentive to purchase from independent generators such as Brixton solar energy.

The Bill should be amended to increase the fixed feed-in tariff threshold for community projects, guarantee a market for community energy schemes and set a minimum annual target for new generation capacity from community schemes. I should like to see local authorities incentivised to lower overall household carbon emissions in their area, which they could do in part by supporting projects such as Brixton solar energy.

The Government should recognise the benefits of co-operative energy generation projects in tackling fuel poverty and promoting sustainability, but instead of acting to help them expand to areas such as Croydon North, which have relatively high levels of fuel poverty, they have introduced a Bill that I fear will damage those initiatives.