Connecting energy and neighbourhoods

More from Rachel Armstead's paper for ICLEI....

Connecting Energy

The ICLEI Thriving neighbourhoods programme framework is based around 5 pillars.

The first is Leadership and Governance which addresses how the capacity of the local community, industry and government can be developed enabling them to take a leading role in driving the sustainability and vibrancy of their local area. The second pillar is Innovation which focuses on harnessing the creativity and ingenuity of a neighbourhood to make use of and develop innovative solutions, technologies and organisational structures. The third is Environmental Imperatives which centres on the management of climate change, natural systems and conservation. The fourth pillar is Economic Needs which addresses the productivity of the neighbourhood, the availability of jobs and businesses and people aspirations. The fifth and final pillar is Social Needs which is focused on social participation and equity, cultural richness and people’s sense of health and wellbeing.

We can approach community energy as one pathway towards the development of thriving neighbourhoods. Energy and community energy in particular possess certain characteristics which make it especially potent as a thriving neighbourhood development tool. The following outlines how community energy can contribute to the five pillars of thriving neighbourhoods.

Leadership and Governance

Participation: Active involvement of residents and local businesses is an important element of community energy. Citizens are participating in the provision of local energy services in a way that they traditionally would not have been; for example as investors. Involving the community in the development of larger scale projects such as a local government lead district heating system and giving the community the opportunity to benefit from the outcome, can significantly increase the acceptability of localised energy generation and energy efficiency projects.

Leadership: Citizens are also being encouraged to take a leadership role in initiating their own projects and partnerships, inspiring and engaging their own communities and managing projects. 

From consumer to producer: Community projects shift citizens from the role of mere consumer to the role of producer. This shift from consumers to producers, which is identified as definitive of thriving neighbourhoods, is especially tangible with regards to energy. Using distributed generation technologies people can make the change from being completely dependent on large energy companies for their supply to becoming completely energy self-sufficient.

Innovation

Innovation and creativity: The process of community energy development involves social, technical and economic creativity. In each project unique solutions specific to the people, businesses and urban landscape will be developed contributing to wider community skills and knowledge around these topics and also to people’s connection to their space and place. 

Environmental Imperatives

The Environment: Energy efficiency and renewable energy projects can make significant contributions to reducing the carbon footprint of a local area and reduce dependency on polluting energy sources such as coal which impact on our health. Energy installations are also often very visible and in being so contribute more widely to public acceptance and engagement with energy and sustainability issues beyond the particulars of an individual project. Community level energy projects also represent a scale up from individual household installations increasing the overall impact of projects within a neighbourhood significantly.

Economic Needs

Business: There is a viable business case for community energy. While water management is predominantly about distribution and waste management is about reduction, energy can be generated, bought and sold opening up numerous business opportunities. If set up and managed optimally, community energy projects have the potential not only to save people money on their bills but also to generate additional revenue for the community and for shareholders. Community level projects also allow people to take advantage of economies of scale making energy efficiency and distributed generation more economically viable than when carried out by individuals.

Equity: Approaching local generation at the community level makes distributed generation accessible to those who do not have the financial resources to invest in individual technologies or lack the physical resources such as ownership of a roof to host an installation. Community level generation can contribute to lower energy bills and in addition surplus revenue from the installation can be re-circulated back into the community via a community fund model.

Resilience: Energy security is a real issue and localized energy generation and a diversification of energy sources can help to improve the resilience of neighbourhoods to fluctuations in energy supply and brownouts and blackouts. It can also provide resilience against energy price rises and help to alleviate fuel poverty.

Social Needs

Development of networks and social cohesion: Energy has huge potential as a catalyst for collective activities at the local scale. The universality of energy needs makes partnerships between neighbours, local businesses, community groups and local government possible; everyone needs energy to run their daily lives. The process of community energy project development from the initial proposition, engagement and education activities, to planning, investment and business management can develop on-going relationships between members of the community that may not otherwise have formed. Once in place such networks can then be utilised for other ventures strengthening the community’s capacities and resilience further.

Energy system choices affect the economic, environmental and social aspects of the community and this lends community energy projects some strong supporting arguments. Crucially energy also has public appeal; it’s exciting in a way that perhaps waste and water may not be. As Paul Murffit from the Moreland Energy Foundation (MEFL) brought up, a lot of people want to be involved in contributing to the health of the environment and the health of their neighbourhoods but lack an avenue for action – local level energy efficiency and renewable energy generation projects can serve as this gateway to engagement. The energy concepts are accessible and the results tangible and visible. Thus community energy projects can form the foundation upon which further projects in other areas can develop.