Shared ownership presents an opportunity for communities to own part of the UK’s net zero energy transition while supporting faster, fairer rollout of clean power projects. Our latest paper sets out the actions required from the UK government and GB Energy to incentivise and enable such projects across the UK.
The UK government has set an ambitious target to achieve clean power by 2030. Alongside this, it has also outlined ambitions to unlock 8 GW of local and community-owned clean energy projects via GB Energy and the Local Power Plan.
Our new paper, Sharing Power: Unlocking shared ownership for a fast & fair net zero transition, makes the case for ‘shared ownership’ models, where clean power projects are jointly owned by developers and local community organisations. We argue that shared ownership can and should be supported by government and GB Energy to play a key role in delivering the Clean Power mission and Local Power Plan.
Shared ownership can accelerate development timelines through productive partnerships between developers and communities, enable less affluent communities to engage in clean energy projects by working with experienced partners, and build wider public support by delivering greater social and economic value than community benefit funds alone.
The key messages of the paper are:
- Shared ownership can support a fast and fair transition to clean power. The UK government has set out big ambitions to achieve clean power by 2030, including 8 GW of local and community-owned energy. Shared ownership has the potential to be a critical component to achieving this mission quickly and fairly, accelerating development timelines and enabling wider social and economic value to people and communities in the process.
- Shared ownership should be recognised as a national priority. Shared ownership increases public support for clean energy projects and net zero, helping to accelerate development timelines. Prioritising shared ownership as ‘needed’ for Clean Power 2030, alongside a clear steer from the UK government to encourage fair, transparent and mutually beneficial projects, can help unlock this on a bigger scale.
- GB Energy should promote and enable shared ownership through a comprehensive community support scheme. Building on (and aligning with) leading examples from Scotland and Wales, capacity support for communities to develop the necessary skills and expertise can enable more shared ownership opportunities to be realised.
- Greater access to finance for communities is critical for successful shared ownership projects. GB Energy should establish grant funding and no/low-interest loans for communities interested in pursuing shared ownership, alongside practical support for accessing debt finance.
- Less affluent communities should be supported as a priority to benefit from shared ownership arrangements. To enable a more just transition, GB Energy should identify and support communities with less resource and capacity to work with experienced partners to deliver shared ownership arrangements, and consider ‘stewarding’ an ownership stake in clean energy projects on behalf of a community.
- Streamlining the administrative process can improve the proposition for developers. Developing more standardised processes for shared ownership projects, as well as template contracts and registers of local partners, can help to reduce overall costs and further reduce development timescales.
To read the paper click here. To talk more about this work, please contact Dr Jessica Hogan.
This work was funded by The William Grant Foundation as part of our Fast & Fair net zero programme.