In July, Regen hosted Northern Powergrid’s annual Community Energy Conferences in York and Newcastle. The two events brought together community energy groups from across the Northern Powergrid’s region and provided the opportunity to hear from experts, discuss key topics from the sector and network with one another.
Regen has partnered with Northern Powergrid as part of our ongoing programme of supporting DNOs with their community energy programmes. For this year’s event, we teamed up with Community Energy England (CEE) to deliver an exciting agenda featuring:
- Panel discussions on regional collaboration
- Financing workshops delivered by experts Ethex
- Presentations from local community energy groups
- Quick fire workshops on share offers, the ‘Community DSO’ innovation project and insights from the sector
- Networking and discussion opportunities throughout the day.
Across the two days there was a range of fascinating insights and learnings, which we have summarised here.
Panel discussions
The conferences kicked off with panel discussions focused on regional collaboration, with Phil Coventry from Community Energy England chairing panels that included community energy organisations, local authorities and civic networks.
York
At this event, we heard from Shaun Gibbons (York City Council), Tom de Simone (York Community Energy), Vicky Dunn (Grimsby Community Energy) and Ben Atkinson (North Lincolnshire County Council).
Among a range of interesting insights, we heard about the close working relationship between York City Council and York Community Energy. Though it took time to build trust from council officers in the approach, York Community Energy now delivers a range of programmes in partnership with the council, providing valuable capacity and empowering the organisation to expand its impact across the city.
We also heard about North Lincolnshire County Council’s journey delivering community-based energy projects on council buildings, including the important step of convincing councillors and officers of the economic and environmental benefits. Grimsby Community Energy expressed the importance of partnerships with local businesses, ensuring their ability to expand is underpinned by strong commercial performance.
Newcastle
Here we were joined by Andy Dean (Community Action Northumberland), Hannah Davison (Northumberland County Council) and David Still (Humshaugh Net Zero).
The audience heard about the internal structures of local authorities and the importance for groups to familiarise themselves with different council departments, and their functions, to successfully collaborate. We also heard about the challenges of ensuring that community-based organisations stay true to their values and engage their local people to ensure they’re acting in their interests.
David highlighted the important role DNOs must play in regional collaboration, citing challenges faced by Humshaugh Net Zero that required a solution from Northern Powergrid.
Financing
We were pleased to host financing experts Ethex across both days, who delivered an introduction to the different funding options available for community energy groups.
Among the different models included share offers and bonds, with attendees of the workshop invited into a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. The workshop also stressed the importance of visual marketing and messaging when seeking to gain local support for projects.
To learn more from Ethex, visit their website.
Peer learning (community presentations)
The morning sessions across both days were rounded out by spotlight presentations from awardees of funding from Northern Powergrid’s 2023 Net Zero Community Energy Fund.
Acomb Parish Council presented its progress on a ground-mounted solar project, which is currently in the early stages of planning. The council carried out citizen engagement and feasibility studies earlier than most community-based renewable generation projects. It shared learnings from the project so far, including identifying suitable sites, the planning process, grid applications and the overall cost of reaching that stage.
On day two in Newcastle, Durham Community Energy presented its innovative project which seeks to use a machine learning model and open data to reduce the financial barriers to community energy projects. Highlighting that the cost of undertaking feasibility studies is often an early barrier to realising community energy projects, the group is seeking to train its machine learning model to identify locations in County Durham which are ideally suited for developing community energy projects.
Quick-fire workshops
Following the lunch and networking break, the afternoon sessions were dedicated to quick-fire workshops, providing delegates the opportunity to engage with a range of topics.
The first of the three sessions was on shared ownership and hosted by Regen’s resident shared-ownership expert, Jess Hogan. The workshop introduced the concept of shared ownership, the various models of shared ownership and the different levels of risk and reward associated with each. Jess highlighted the best-practice guidance in Scotland and Wales that encourages developers to offer shared ownership along with a community benefits package for communities.
The session finished with a short scenario-based activity exploring how citizens could engage with a developer on shared ownership.
Another of the workshops was an introduction to Northern Powergrid’s Community DSO innovation project. This network innovation project is seeking ‘energy communities’ who can engage in and benefit from the delivery of flexibility services. Jane Watson introduced the project to the group and participants provided feedback on how Northern Powergrid can engage local communities in its innovation trials.
Last, but not least, was a workshop hosted by CEE chief executive Phil Coventry, introducing findings from the organisation’s State of the Sector Report. Phil talked through the insights from the annual report on community energy in the UK, before opening up a discussion to gather the group’s views on its insights from the sector in the North East, Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire
Coming up next
We gathered plenty of feedback from delegates on the day and were pleased to hear so many of the sessions were insightful for attendees. We will use the feedback to shape how we support community energy groups at future events.
The next community energy event for Northern Powergrid will be an online training session on 3 October from 10:00-12:30. You can sign up here, and more details will be shared shortly.
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