Funding for the UK’s community energy sector – what are the opportunities and challenges?

The UK’s community energy sector has developed an efficient model of citizen finance for renewable energy projects over the last decade. However, government policy changes, such as the closure of the Feed-in Tariff, have forced community organisations to look for new business models.  In this webinar, Matt Hannon and colleagues from the UK Energy Research Centre’s Financing Community Energy Project outline their findings on how projects have been financed to date, how community energy groups are innovating now, and the opportunities and challenges ahead. Key points are the ‘community discount’ in the cost of finance at small scales, thanks to the co-evolution of community energy and online crowdfunding; the challenges of managing more complex, customer-facing business models; and the opportunities presented by the UK’s shift to a more decentralised and ‘smart’ consumer-focussed energy system.

Speakers

Dr Matthew Hannon - Senior Lecturer and Director of Research, Strathclyde Business School