Enabling Community Energy

Darren Jones Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab) [V]]

It is, as usual, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Members who have already spoken.

Whenever there is a debate on community energy, I have the great pleasure of speaking on behalf of some of the innovative and hardworking community energy groups that operate here in Bristol North West. On that note, I ought to declare my interests: I am a founding member of the Bristol Energy Cooperative, and my wife works for the Association for Decentralised Energy.

Any colleagues who drive through my constituency—most probably over the M5 at the mouth of the River Avon—will see that we have a scattering of onshore wind turbines. Soon, we will have one more, and it is primarily that wind turbine that I will talk about. Ambition Lawrence Weston is a community group that works with residents in Lawrence Weston, the area of my constituency where I grew up, to create the best possible community for local people. They have developed and implemented a local neighbourhood plan, they are building affordable sustainable homes for local residents, and they are now investing in community energy projects, too.

Their latest project—the wind turbine—is community-owned and will be built on land owned by Bristol City Council in the industrial estate adjacent to Lawrence Weston. Standing 150 metres tall, it is estimated that this one turbine alone will generate enough low-carbon energy to power 3,500 homes, reducing carbon dioxide emissions associated with the generation of that power by nearly 2,000 tonnes each year.

Lawrence Weston has only 3,200 homes in the area, with many homes of families on lower incomes. Although it is clear that not every home in Lawrence Weston can be powered by only one intermittent source of power, it is a great shame that local residents cannot benefit from the lower energy costs associated with the low-carbon energy that is generated locally by their local community energy group, especially when those residents know that any surpluses will be reinvested into their local community.

We have already heard today how difficult the process is. It has taken years of hard work to even get to this stage. Ambition Lawrence Weston did not just have to secure the site from the council, it had to bid for financial support from the council, as well as Bristol and Bath Regional Capital and the West of England Combined Authority—funding of £500,000 from the combined authority came from the European regional development fund. That was in addition to other grants required to fund all the detailed groundwork needed in order to get planning permission and, in this case, sign-off and approval from the Secretary of State. That has all been achieved, after years of hard work.

The Minister will know that, as part of our net zero target and the pathways to net zero set out by the Climate Change Committee, we need to double the size of our electricity system. As with heat, we are increasingly talking about the right technology in the right place, with some areas better suited to heat networks or hydrogen pumps more generally. The same is true with electricity. With a more flexible distribution network comes the opportunity for more decentralised, local sources of power; it is a great opportunity for community energy to fulfil that need.

In addition to answering the questions that colleagues have asked already, will the Minister set out how she thinks community energy will play a role in doubling the size of the power sector? Will she also confirm that the shared prosperity fund will replace the funding sources previously available for community energy groups made available through the European regional development fund?