Community Energy

What is community energy?

Community energy refers to community projects or initiatives focused on any one or more of the following strands: 

• Reducing energy use
• Managing energy better
• Generating energy
• Purchasing energy

Community energy organisations help to deliver a smarter, cleaner energy system whilst generating social benefits.

For more information about community energy, take a look at the Community Energy Hub, managed by Community Energy England.

What is happening in our areas?

We have approximately 25% of community energy organisations in England & Wales located across London, the South and South East, with a total of 61 community groups.

Our most active region is the South East, with almost 60 per cent of these communities, London accounts for 23 per cent of the organisations, and the East area is responsible for the remaining 18 per cent.

The most common type of community energy activity across UK Power Networks’ is Electricity generation, followed by energy efficiency / demand management.

Among the electricity generation projects, solar energy is the most dominant technology, followed by wind projects. 

Who we work with

In our areas, there are three distinct umbrella organisations who work with community energy groups to share best practice and nurture collaboration:

• Community Energy South
• Community Energy London
• Community Energy East 

Our role

Our role in supporting community energy takes several forms:

1. Collaborate and innovate – we collaborate and innovate with community energy organisations to ensure our services respond to customer needs and we are always looking at new ways to support community energy growth. 
2. Connect and flex – we facilitate quicker and cheaper connections of community energy projects to the network. We also enable new markets for flexible services like Demand Side Response where we will pay community energy projects for their surplus energy to support the management of our networks.
3. Educate and support – we provide guidance on how communities can get involved in community energy and useful energy saving tips. We also help protect vulnerable customers during power cuts.

Find out how we as a business are delivering a smart grid that supports community energy FutureSmart.