DECC Community Energy Online Bulletin (February 2012)

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy sent this bulletin at 15-02-2012 04:46 PM GMT

DECC Community Energy Online Bulletin

We are resending this bulletin due to broken links in the previous version. Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Bringing you information on the latest developments in community energy

15 February 2012

Recent Highlights:

1. £10m Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF) winners announced

DECC announced the “LEAF 2” winning communities. “LEAF” is the Local Energy Assessment Fund (£10m) supporting assessments for the potential for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. LEAF funding is available for this financial year (ending on 31 March 2012). It aims to help community groups understand their energy issues locally and prepare them for the Green Deal, revolving funds and for renewable energy financial incentives. For further information on finding funding, see the CEO funding page.

2. LEAF map published

LEAF map has been launched to publicise all the LEAF award winners. If you are a LEAF award winner and want to share your contacts details and information about your ongoing work, please add your project profile to the map. You can upload photos and videos of events and activities, provide links to your websites and social media sites. Go to the map and register (if you are a first time user) and you can begin adding your project by selecting the ‘Add Content’ button on the map interface. There's a link to the tutorial below the map. For further information or help, email l.francis@mappingforchange.org.uk

3. Feed-in tariff consultation - for community projects

Following representations made during the Phase 1 FITs consultation, DECC published the Phase 2 consultation documents on 9 February, which consults on a number of measures that will impact on community projects. The starting point is to consult on a definition of “community” that can be used to differentiate between community projects and other projects. The Phase 2B consultation is consulting on holding the tariff for “community” multiple installations at the 80% level announced in the Phase 1 decision document (also published on 9 February), while also proposing to lower tariffs for commercial multiple installations further. Smaller numbers of multiple installations will be able to benefit from the Phase 1 announcement that the multi-installation rate will only apply to owners with more than 25 installations. Recognising the longer development times for community projects, DECC is also consulting on the possibility of them being able to fix the tariff at some point in the development of the project.

4. Community Energy Contact Group

Greg Barker’s “Community Energy Contact Group” met for the second time on 13 February. A record of its first meeting is available on the CEO website.

  • Community Energy Online: http://ceo.decc.gov.uk
  • Twitter account: @CECGnews (An independent Twitter account set up to provide news to practitioners and feedback to DECC on the Community Energy Contact Group.)

5. DECC's Community Energy Online 

DECC's Community Energy Portal continues to be revised. We would welcome your help in promoting it more widely via community websites by including a link to CEO on your site.

We are also inviting consideration of useful videos and website links about community projects. For further details see CEO’s revised case studies webpage.

Recently revised pages on the CEO website:

6. Green Deal in relation to community buildings

DECC is working to ensure that the widest range of buildings are eligible for the Green Deal. It is currently exploring possibilities for the Green Deal technical assessment to take into account a range of building types (including churches and community buildings) that might otherwise fall outside of a typical assessment process. This will enable buildings to access up-front funds for recommended measures which will be repayable against energy savings. The Green Deal consultation has recently closed and issues relating to assessment and “bulk-buying” for communities are under discussion.

7. Co-operative Community Energy Challenge

There’s a new initiative from the Centre for Sustainable Energy with The Co-operative which was launched on February 1st. It’s called the Co-operative Community Energy Challenge and forms an integral new element of The Co-operative’s Clean Energy Revolution campaign. The Community Energy Challenge will provide 12-18 months of enterprise development, mentoring, technical advice and community facilitation for six to eight communities, enabling them to initiate co-operative renewable energy projects at a significant scale (e.g. valued at £1m to £3m and/or rated in excess of 500kW). For further details see the Co-op Energy Challenge website. There is a two-stage competitive application process to become part of the Community Energy Challenge, with deadline for stage 1 - expressions of interest - on 29 February 2012. Lack of technical know-how should not be considered a barrier.

8. SAP consultation

DECC is currently consulting on potential amendments to the SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) which is the Government’s tool for assessing the energy performance of dwellings. The consultation is currently open with a close date of 28th March. The consultation documents can be found on the DECC website. 

9. Useful quick links

Please forward this bulletin to local authorities, parish councils, community groups, local contacts, other partners and stakeholder organizations who have an interest in community energy.

Those interested in receiving future bulletins can sign up via the CEO website, http://ceo.decc.gov.uk