This workshop is part of the Local Authority Community Energy Springboard project funded by the Greater South East Net Zero Hub to develop practical, ready-to-use guidance for local authorities on benefiting from community-owned solar on Council buildings and land.

The workshops in this series have been designed to inform the guidance and are directly relevant to the current policy context. Great British Energy's Local Power Plan commits up to £1 billion for over 1,000 community energy projects by 2030, and local and strategic authorities that are ready (i.e. those with a strategy in place and community energy partner(s) identified) will be best placed to access that funding first. The guidance we're developing is designed to help your Council get to that position quickly without reinventing the wheel.

Who is this workshop for?

This event is for Officers and Councillors who have not yet started down this path and want to understand why the community-owned model makes financial sense, and in particular how this approach compares to a Council installing its own panels on its estate.

Community energy groups in the Greater South East Net Zero Hub area are also welcome to attend to learn more about the Council perspective and how to make their case for community energy partnerships to their own Councils.

What is the format and what will you get out of it?

We'll hear from a Council and community energy group who have delivered a post-Feed-in-Tariff project together, and then open the floor for a frank Q&A and discussion about the barriers your Council faces and how they could be overcome. We'll also unpack the benefits of accessing patient, no cost, community investment to enable Councils to save money with no upfront capital cost and compare these with other options available to Councils to use low carbon technologies to cut energy bills.

For questions, please contact membership@uk100.org