Towards Energy Independence: green energy and community energy companies

Earlier this year the UK government announced an ambitious target for the country to be on 100% renewable energy by 2030. Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity said on X that this was a clear boost the achieving energy independence and to reduce energy bills. But how do we get there? We appreciate the funding the UK government is able to provide and the initiative, but we can’t just sit around waiting for the wheels of the state to do all the work for us. We think through grass-roots community action collaborating with government and energy-sector initiatives. Locally Community Energy Companies are springing up over the country looking to provide part of the answer to the Energy Independence question. On this page we provide links to various initiatives and resources to help you and your community to make good choices and work towards achieving Energy Independence.

Advice on energy efficiency

• Planet First Energy has been developed to help businesses meet their environmental targets, and support their communities, while saving money on energy.
• The Centre for Sustainable Energy’s page is a useful starting point for all sorts of advice on energy efficiency at https://www.cse.org.uk/my-home/advice/
• Green Match offer a downloadable guide on how to save energy at home (note they will ask you for your email address to get it).
• Citizen’s Advice Bureau’s (CAB) advice on making your home more energy efficient.
• The Energy Saving Trust’s Quick Tips on Saving Energy.
• Free grant checking service for improving your home’s warmth: https://warmerhomegrant.co.uk/

Advice on choosing suppliers

• Compare green energy suppliers (and lots of other eco-services) with this useful tool from Compare Green
• The venerable Ethical Consumer also has some great tools for comparing various green services, including Green and ethical energy suppliers

Advice relating to Community Energy Companies

• The Centre for Sustainable Energy’s page on how to run a community energy advice service.
• Check out Community Energy England’s piece on Creating a network of local Energy Ambassadors to tackle fuel poverty
• Co-op Energy’s page on their Community Energy service

Politics, policy, advocacy, and news

• FoE piece on renewable energy in the UK.
• The UK Government’s Climate change and energy portal page, including news and announcements.
• Recent news on the new Labour Government’s plan to double wind-power by 2030 and here on their policies around home rooftop solar installations.
• You can subscribe by email to receive news and press releases from the office of The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero at his page at https://www.gov.uk/government/people/ed-miliband.
• And also follow green energy champion and Ecotricity founder and CEO Dale Vince at his website https://dalevince.com/.
• If you have money to invest, there are plenty of green energy companies about, such as Thrive Renewables and Big Solar Coop as well as local groups, such as Dorset Community Energey, that invite investors to own a part of a wind or solar farm themselves.
• The Climate Technology Show is taking place at Excel in London’s Docklands in November.  You can get a free visitor pass in return for sharing some of your data with them.