Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to support community energy projects.

In the Clean Growth Strategy, I announced the creation of a Local Energy Contact Group and a Local Energy Programme. The Contact Group is made up of representatives of communities, Local Authorities and local enterprise partnerships and provides local insight for policy teams across BEIS.

The Local Energy Programme has funded Local Energy Strategies in every Local Enterprise Partnership. These strategies will feed into the newly developed Local Energy Hubs, also funded by BEIS to create capacity and capability to help Local Authorities deliver low carbon energy projects at scale.

I have brought the Rural Community Energy Fund into my Department to allow it to integrate better with the other work we are doing on heat and local ownership. Together with the Local Energy Programme, that will be almost £20m committed by this Government to support local and community energy in the last three years. Alongside this we have launched Prospering from the Energy Revolution, a £100m innovation fund designed to support local areas in demonstrating integrated approaches to local energy systems.

In our consultation on a Smart Export Guarantee, Government sought views on our future approach and what measures might be taken to support the efforts of community organisations and education providers who want to invest in low-carbon energy installations. The consultation closed on 5 March 2019, the responses and evidence submitted are being carefully considered. Government will respond in due course.

The consultation is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-future-for-small-scale-low-carbon-generation