Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989

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Energy Policy

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A thousand flowers blooming? An examination of community energyin the UK

Gill Seyfang a,n, Jung Jin Park b, Adrian Smith b

a 3S (Science, Society and Sustainability) Research Group, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdomb SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RH, United Kingdom

H I G H L I G H T S

� The community-led sustainable energy sector is diverse, and growing in the UK.

� Sometimes it is more about the community than the energy.� Joined-up policy thinking is needed to properly measure performance and impact.� There are limits to how much civil society-led groups can achieve on their own.� Consistent policy support is essential to the sector's development.

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 26 September 2012Accepted 6 June 2013Available online 6 July 2013

Keywords:Sustainable energyGrassroots innovationsCivil society

15/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. Ax.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.06.030

esponding author. Tel.: +44 160 359 2956.ail address: g.seyfang@uea.ac.uk (G. Seyfang).

a b s t r a c t

Community energy has been proposed as a new policy tool to help achieve the transition to a low-carbonenergy system, but the evidence base for this strategy is partial and fragmented. We therefore presentnew empirical evidence from the first independent UK-wide survey of community energy projects.Our survey investigates the objectives, origins and development of these groups across the UK, theiractivities and their networking activities as a sector. We also examine the strengths and weaknesses ofthese groups, along with the opportunities and threats presented by wider socioeconomic and politicalcontexts, in order to improve understanding of the sector's potential and the challenges it faces.We highlight several key issues concerning the further development of the sector. First, this highlydiverse sector is not reducible to a single entity; its multiple objectives need joined-up thinking amonggovernment departments. Second, its civil society basis is fundamental to its success at engaging localcommunities, and makes the sector quite distinct from the large energy companies these communitygroups are aiming to work alongside. There are inherent tensions and vulnerabilities in such a model,and limits to how much these groups can achieve on their own: consistent policy support is essential.

& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The twin sustainability challenges of climate change andenergy security require fundamental shifts in the nature oflarge-scale energy systems (UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC),2009; Grin et al., 2010). The previous UK government's LowCarbon Transition Plan presents a national strategy for climateand energy which includes reducing energy consumption throughconservation and efficiency measures, and the development oflow-carbon electricity generation systems (HM Government,2009). A key element of this plan is the role of households andcommunities, as “we often achieve more acting together than as

ll rights reserved.

individuals” (ibid p. 92) and the government's task is to “create anenvironment where the innovation and ideas of communities [inresponse to climate change] can flourish” (p. 92).

Community energy projects are one example of this type ofgrassroots-led innovation, which aim to create more sustainableenergy systems. They encompass a wide range of initiatives suchas locally-owned renewable energy generation, community hallrefurbishments, collective behaviour change programmes, and soon, and are claimed to bring additional public engagementbenefits to top-down policy initiatives. To this end, a range ofgovernment funding programmes and prize competitions havebeen instigated, to stimulate and support community-led sustain-able energy initiatives.

Community energy has therefore been proposed as a newpolicy tool to help achieve the transition to a low-carbon energysystem, but the evidence base for this strategy is partial and

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989978

fragmented: existing research on community energy consistsmostly of qualitative studies of small numbers of projects, andfocuses on either renewable energy technologies or behaviour-change to reduce carbon emissions, rather than community energyper se. The few existing quantitative surveys of the communityenergy sector have been similarly limited by focusing on eithersupply or demand-side measures and have tended to be under-taken by NGOs with specific remits within the broader sector.

Consequently, there is no existing dataset providing an empiri-cal overview of the whole community energy sector, addressingboth supply and demand-side initiatives. There is a pressing needfor independent, sector-wide data about the scope, scale andcharacter of community energy in the UK, to provide evidencefor policymakers to inform their decision-making about the sector,and to better inform practitioners and intermediary organisationsabout how to meet the needs of the sector and support it toachieve its potential.

We aim to address that knowledge deficit by presenting newempirical evidence from the first independent UK-wide survey ofcommunity energy projects. Our survey investigates the objec-tives, origins and development of these groups across the UK, theiractivities and their networking as a sector. We also examine thestrengths and weaknesses of these groups, along with the oppor-tunities and threats presented by wider contexts, in order toimprove understanding of the sector's potential and the challengesit faces.

The paper proceeds with a review of the policy and researchcontexts of community energy in the UK, synthesising existingknowledge on the sector and identifying key issues from theliterature which require further investigation. We then describeour research methodology, and reflect on the limitations of thedata obtained. Next, we present our survey results and identify themost important findings in light of the previous review, and wediscuss their significance for the transition to sustainable energy.We conclude by considering the implications of these findings forfurther research, and outline some policy recommendations tosupport the sector to achieve its potential.

2. Community energy: The policy and research context

2.1. Introducing community energy

The last few years have seen a flourishing of community-ledsustainable energy projects (hereafter ‘community energy’) in theUK, building on an historical foundation of alternative energyinitiatives from the 1970s, and benefiting from recent policymeasures to support the transition to a low-carbon economy.A recent study identified over 500 community ‘renewable’ energyprojects alone (Walker et al., 2007) and demand-side initiativesare likely to be of a similar order. Community energy is a diversefield of activity, and includes both energy generation andconservation projects such as: village hall refurbishments introdu-cing high levels of insulation and energy efficiency, combinedwith micro-generation technologies; collective behaviour changeprogrammes such as Carbon Rationing Action Groups, TransitionStreets or Student Switch-Off; community-owned wind turbineslike those on the Scottish Isles of Eigg or Gigha; cooperatively-runsmall-scale energy systems, for example, Ouse Valley EnergyServices Company (OVESCO) or Brighton Energy Cooperative.They are typically instigated or run by a diverse range of civilsociety groups, including voluntary organisations, cooperatives,informal associations etc, and partnerships with social enterprises,schools, businesses, faith groups, local government or utilitycompanies (Clark and Chadwick, 2011; Adams, 2008).

Defining ‘community energy’ precisely is somewhat proble-matic: there is no consensus over the term, and policymakers,intermediary organisations, practitioners and academics infervarying degrees of community involvement (Muller et al., 2011;Hoffman and High-Pippert, 2010; Walker and Devine-Wright,2008). Walker et al. (2007) reviewed a number of differentcommunity renewable energy projects to investigate the varia-tions in community ownership and outcomes across the range,and to examine the diversity of interpretations of ‘communityenergy’ in use amongst different actors. While offering a slipperyconcept for analysis, the ‘flexibility’ of interpretations did work infavour of wide acceptability of the concept of community energy.For the purposes of this paper we follow Walker and Devine-Wright's (2008) lead and consider community energy to refer tothose projects where communities (of place or interest) exhibit ahigh degree of ownership and control, as well as benefitingcollectively from the outcomes, and we include both supply- anddemand-side sustainable energy initiatives. In the next section wedescribe a principally instrumental policy perspective on thesector which has been developed in government strategies forsustainable energy.

2.2. Policy support for community energy

Community action has, for some time, been seen as a key partof government strategy for delivering sustainable development.The UK government has stated that:

Community groups can help tackle climate change, developcommunity energy and transport projects, help minimisewaste, improve the quality of the local environment, andpromote fair trade and sustainable consumption and produc-tion (HM Government, 2005, p. 27).

And within this context, community energy projects are deemedsuitable vehicles for raising awareness of sustainable energy issues,improving public receptivity to renewable energy installations,increasing engagement in behaviour-change initiatives and reducingcarbon emissions as a result. Thus, communities are seen as criticalplayers in sustainable energy generation and energy saving efforts, inkey polices of the previous New Labour UK and devolved govern-ments (HM Government, 2005, 2010), and this has been reiterated bythe UK's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government: “Com-munity energy is a perfect expression of the transformative power ofthe Big Society” (Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC),2010). To this end, several policy initiatives have explicitly aimed tocatalyse increased community energy activity such as Scotland'sScottish Community and Householder Renewables Initiative(Scottish Executive, 2006), the Welsh Assembly's Community ScaleRenewable Energy Programme (Welsh Government, 2010), RuralCommunity Renewable Energy Fund (Department for Environment,Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), 2012), the Local Energy Assess-ment Fund (Energy Saving Trust, 2011), the Low Carbon BuildingsProgramme (Building Research Establishment (BRE), 2011) and theDepartment for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)'s CommunityEnergy Online information portal (http://ceo.decc.gov.uk). In addition,DECC's Low Carbon Communities Challenge (Department of Energyand Climate Change (DECC), 2009) aimed to learn from a series ofexemplar projects: what potential they have to contribute to a low-carbon energy transition, and how best to seed wider change at thecommunity level. Alongside this latter intervention, the UK ResearchCouncils partnered with DECC to fund a programme of research toevaluate and better understand the scope and potential of the sectorby investigating appropriate ways to reduce energy demand andthereby help the UK to meet its energy and environment targets and

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989 979

policy goals (ESRC, 2010); at time of writing, these projects areongoing and their findings are not yet available.

The distribution of benefits (in terms of both cost savings andgenerated income) is a key element of government support for thesector: “we will encourage community-owned renewable energyschemes where local people benefit from the power produced. Wewill also allow communities that host renewable energy projectsto keep the additional business rates they generate” (HMGovernment, 2010, p. 17; see also Department of Energy andClimate Change (DECC), 2011). Instrumental policy perspectivestherefore see community projects as facilitating technologicalshifts to renewable technologies, promoting behavioural change,and embedding social acceptability for larger sustainable energytechnologies (HM Government, 2005).

2.3. Community energy: The evidence base

The claims made for community energy are wide-ranging, andthe policy initiatives to support the sector have been significant, butthe extent to which this represents evidence-based policymaking isunclear. Here we review what is currently known about the UKcommunity energy sector, and identify the limitations of currentknowledge, and the evidence gaps that remain. There have beenonly three surveys conducted in recent years which attempt tocapture a representative picture of civil society action aroundsustainable energy, and address both energy generation and energyconservation across wide geographical areas: the UK Low CarbonCommunities Network's annual membership surveys covering localaction groups and supporting bodies (e.g. 100 responses from 2012survey, 12.5% of their members) (Low Carbon CommunitiesNetwork, 2012); the (unpublished) Energy Saving Trust's GreenCommunities programme member survey gathering 304 responses(5% of their members) (Energy Saving Trust, 2010); and Friends ofthe Earth's study of 267 community climate action groups in south-west England (Grimes, 2007). These studies reveal that althoughthe surveyed groups had wider ‘low carbon' or ‘climate action’remits, sustainable energy is the primary objective in most of thecases. Furthermore, initiatives around energy conservation weremore common than energy generation; they also demonstrate thestrongly informal and grassroots basis of these initiatives, as 59%,55% and 85%, respectively, of the groups were entirely volunteer-run. However, none of these surveys was specifically targeted atcommunity energy groups, and nor were they conducted by anindependent body.

In addition to these surveys, there are a number of networkswith publically-available directories of community energy projectscompiled by NGOs and organisations administering grant/fundingprogrammes. These may under- or over-represent the sector, asthey are sometimes focused on one particular type of activity, orare self-reported with no verification. Nevertheless, they give anindication of the sector's scale in 2012: the Transition Networklists 220 UK Transition Town groups (www.transitionnetwork.org); Community Energy Scotland has 302 projects (www.communityenergyscotland.org.uk); there were 24 Carbon RationingAction Groups active in 2008 (Howell, 2012); Energyshare lists1087 ‘groups’ (www.energyshare.com; this includes anyone whohas registered as being interested in their work); the BuildingsResearch Establishment's Low Carbon Building Programmeincluded 2480 non-domestic, not for profit, community basedorganisations (schools, social housing associations, churches, butnot necessarily community energy groups) between 2006 and2011 (www.bre.co.uk); and Keep Scotland Beautiful's ClimateChallenge Fund made awards to 261 communities between 2008and 2011 (ccf.keepscotlandbeautiful.org).

Finally, two online databases of community energy projectshave been compiled as part of UK Research Council-fundedprojects. Walker et al. (2005)'s desk study of community renew-able energy gathered information on 507 projects, and adopts adeliberately broad definition of community energy. Solar thermalprojects were the most prominent (40% of projects), significantlymore than the next most common technologies: wind, biomassand solar electricity (all at 17%). They reveal an uneven geogra-phical distribution favouring England (66%), followed by Scotland(20%), Wales (10%) and Northern Ireland (4%). Complementing thisis a Scotland-focused database compiled by the EnGAGE project(Bomberg and McEwen, 2012) of 135 grassroots groups workingon reducing energy consumption and generating renewableenergy. These databases indicate the size of the sector, but providelittle empirical data. Furthermore, the weakness of these quanti-tative surveys and databases for our purposes is that they tend toeither consider only energy generation, or they target ‘low carbon’and ‘climate action’ groups which overlap, but do not exactlycoincide, with community energy.

In contrast, previous qualitative research on community energyin the UK has much to say about the potential and challenges facedby community energy projects. This work tends to be in the form ofin-depth qualitative case studies, examining one or a small numberof initiatives in detail, and frequently investigates exemplar or‘successful’ projects to understand their dynamics and impacts.These studies often focus on a particular technology e.g. ruralScottish hydro cases (Hain et al., 2005), community wind (Yin,2012; Hinshelwood, 2001; Maruyama et al., 2007), communitywoodfuels (Rogers et al., 2012), hydrogen (Shaw and Mazzucchelli,2010). Alternatively, research on energy saving tends to be withinthe context of low-carbon behaviour-change activities (e.g. Howell,2012), and so sustainable energy agendas are not explicitly exam-ined to the same extent; in addition, these tend to focus on eitherhouseholders (Darby, 2006) or ‘group’ actions, which are inter-preted as ‘low carbon community’ activities (Middlemiss andParrish, 2010; Baldwin, 2010; Heiskanen et al., 2010).

Hielscher et al. (2013) identify three aspects of communityenergy which differentiate the sector from government- orbusiness-led interventions. First, community energy projects aremulti-faceted, and rarely address only one technology or aspect ofbehaviour in isolation; more commonly, they combine behaviouralinitiatives with efficiency measures, and both of these with micro-generation, in holistic interventions (see for example Adams,2008; Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), 2010;Gardiner et al., 2011; Steward et al., 2009). Second, by bringingtogether groups of people with common purpose, they overcomethe structural limitations of individualistic measures, by empow-ering and enabling communities to collectively change their social,economic and technical contexts to encourage more sustainablelives and practise their ideological commitment to sustainability(Mulugetta et al., 2010; Sustainable Development Commission,2010; Walker, 2008; Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012). Third, theyenable citizen participation in addressing sustainable energyissues, building on local knowledge and networks, and developingsolutions appropriate to local contexts (Walker et al., 2007). Thiscan include community development (Gubbins, 2007; Hain et al.,2005; Hinshelwood 2001), addressing fuel poverty (Reeves, 2011)and local economic development (Shaw and Mazzucchelli, 2010;Hoffman and High-Pippert, 2010; Rogers et al., 2012) and evenemergent experiments in self-governance and participatorydemocracy (Hoffman and High-Pippert, 2010; Walker, 2008).The objectives of, and claims made for community energy there-fore go far beyond policy-instrumental energy-generation, carbon-reduction and financial benefits (Hinshelwood, 2003; St. Denis andParker, 2009), and incorporate a wider range of sustainabilityobjectives.

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989980

Some common themes emerge from this body of qualitativeresearch, about the internal and external success factors forcommunity energy projects and the obstacles to be overcome.Critical success factors can be grouped into five areas, correlatingwith different levels of activity:

�

group: having key committed individuals to drive a projectforwards; an effective organising group capable of maintainingmomentum and overcoming setbacks;

�

project: having sufficient time, information, skills, money andmaterial resources to carry out the project; financial viability(where relevant);

�

community: the project being designed to meet the commu-nity's needs; engaging with and developing trust with thecommunity;

�

network: forming supportive partnerships and information-sharing networks; sharing information with other groups; and

�

policy: a supportive national policy context.

Consequently, the most significant challenges identified in theliterature are an absence of the success factors listed here, at thesame five levels:

�

group: lack of clear direction or management; � project: a need for skills, information, financial and material

resources;

� community: overcoming public disinterest and mistrust of new

energy systems; tackling a sense of disempowerment in thepublic;

�

network: the need to consolidate learning and skills so they canbe transferred to others; and

�

policy: a lack of policy support; inconsistent and hard-to-accessgrant funding; difficulties with planning and other legal issues(where relevant).

These issues are not unique to the community energy sector, ofcourse, and are broadly representative of the types of critical successfactors and challenges found in civil society-led and social economyinitiatives working in other sectors too (Amin et al., 2002). However,while this knowledge about the community energy sector is undeni-ably useful in uncovering the dynamics and processes experienced bycommunity energy groups, and indicating possible policy recommen-dations to support the sector, it is nevertheless derived from smallnumbers of single-issue case studies. It cannot tell us how represen-tative of the entire sector these findings are, nor the relativesignificance of different factors overall, nor anything about thegeographical distribution of community energy and its scope andprofile. We can see that despite considerable interest from academicsand policymakers alike in community energy, there has to date beenno quantitative survey of the UK's entire community energy sector.Our study is the first survey to investigate community energy in theUK and assess its scope, scale, character, activities, success factors andchallenges faced. Given the policy context described above, and thestate of existing knowledge about the sector, we expect to findevidence of the types of dynamics and issues already identified inprevious work; our study is unique in quantitatively substantiating thequalitative data, providing a measure of the prevalence and distribu-tion of these success factors and obstacles among the sector, andassessing howwell this existing knowledge fits our empirical data. Wetherefore adopt the five levels of activity identified above, as ouranalytical framework for assessing the fit of existing knowledge tonew empirical data. Our aim is to provide useful insights for decision-makers seeking to support and harness the sector, as well ascontributing to the literature by presenting a more representativepicture than currently exists. In the next section we describe themethodology employed in our study.

3. Methodology

A web-based survey of community energy groups and projectswas undertaken between June and October 2011. As there is noexisting comprehensive database of such initiatives, a list ofrelevant UK support or network organisations was systematicallycollated from web-based searches, and snowballing from personalcontacts, until saturation was reached. This included local, regionaland national organisations working on climate change, sustain-ability and sustainable energy issues (such as the Low CarbonCommunities Network and the Centre for Sustainable Energy).These organisations were asked to circulate a link to the web-survey to their members or other related organisations; 212organisations were approached at least twice and 103 agreed todistribute the survey to their member groups. In addition, thesurvey link was sent directly to 234 communities involved incommunity energy projects, identified through online searches.Despite these best efforts to target the entire population ofcommunity energy projects, it is unrealistic to assume we weresuccessful; the sector is notoriously difficult to bound (we cast ournet wide to begin with and later excluded some responses), anddynamic; emerging from civil society many groups in their earlystages may be unconnected to other networks and have no visiblepublic profile, yet be working effectively at the local level. To thisextent, our sampled population was biased towards more estab-lished groups with web presence and network connections, anddoubtless those who responded were more likely to be those withthe capacity to respond to requests for information, an interest indeveloping the wider sector, and those established or accom-plished enough to feel confident in reporting their experiencesand views. In total, 354 responses were received.

After removing duplicated and abandoned responses, the rest ofthe responses were scrutinised by studying their websites or makingenquires through emails. Only those which were directly involved inrunning community energy projects, and fitting our definition ofcommunity energy outlined previously, were included in the finalsample of 190. This sample size compares very well with the similarsurveys in recent years mentioned in the previous section. Althoughwe cannot be sure we have a representative sample of UK commu-nity energy projects, we have achieved the maximum practicableresponse from the widest range of eligible organisations, and includea diverse set of organisations. We compare our findings to those ofrelevant surveys where possible, for triangulation, and have noreason not to believe our picture is broadly representative.

The questionnaire used closed and open-ended questions togather information about community energy, asking about com-munity groups (e.g. members, locality, group structure) and theirsustainable energy projects (e.g. types of projects and activities,project progress, objectives), and about their successes and obsta-cles to be overcome. Descriptive analyses of closed-ended ques-tions were conducted, and responses to open-ended questionswere coded using standard qualitative data analysis techniques,and subsequently quantified. Given that over two-thirds of ourrespondents were involved in both types of community energyactivity simultaneously (energy generation and energy conserva-tion), a comparative analysis between projects in each activity areawas not considered meaningful, and the dataset is analysed as awhole.

4. Results: Community energy in the UK

In this section, we present our findings organised according tothe themes and five levels of activity identified earlier:(i) Characteristics of Community Energy in the UK (who are they?

Fig. 1. Map showing geographical location of UK community energy projects(Reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the OrdnanceSurvey© Crown Copyright 2012).

South East

Greater London

North West

East

West Midlands

South West

Yorkshire and Humber

East Midlands

North East

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland

0 5 10 15 20

Distribution of UK Population and Community Energy Activity

%

PopulationCommunity Energy

Fig. 2. Comparison of regional distribution of population and community energygroups in the UK (Office for National Statistics, 2012).

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989 981

what are they doing and why?); (ii) Important factors influencingthe success and growth of Community Energy. The aim is tocompare our quantitative findings with previous partial andqualitative knowledge on the sector.

4.1. Characteristics of the sector

Our survey respondents came from a wide variety of differenttypes of community energy groups, including local civil societygroups focusing on climate change, low carbon activities andgeneral sustainability issues, e.g. Transition Towns, sustainablevillages; renewable energy cooperatives, community interestcompanies and partnerships; related non-energy groups e.g. localconservation or allotment groups; local branches of nationalcampaigns e.g. 10:10; groups or organisations who own or manage(or build) community buildings, such as church or faith groups,schools and colleges, village halls, social clubs, social housing;Statutory and non-statutory councils below the district level e.g.parish or town councils; Community Development Trusts andCommunity Associations or Trusts; projects set up by localauthorities but mainly run by local communities e.g. Local Agenda21 groups; and partnerships with public organisations withrelatively strong community leadership. Of those who told usabout their group structures, a third (35%) were informal groups(comprising 20% working independently and 15% working as partof a large formal initiatives or programmes). Other major cate-gories included charitable incorporated organisations (23%), chari-table social enterprises (18%) and limited companies with socialpurposes (16%). Given our sampling strategy to include a widerange of existing (community-based) organisations, it is possiblethat some of the respondents already had a formal structurebefore they began their community energy projects.

While community energy projects can represent communitiesof place or interest, we found that the vast majority (89%)identified as communities of place. We found a wide geographicaldistribution of projects across the UK, as shown in Fig. 1, althoughcompared to the distribution of population across the UK, someregions had proportionately more community energy activity thanothers (see Fig. 2). Overall, England was under-represented interms of community energy, with 84% of the population but only75% of community energy groups; on the other hand, Scotlandwell-served by community energy with 8% of the UK's populationbut 18% of the groups. Within England, community energy groupswere disproportionately found within the South East and SouthWest regions, and under-represented in London, the North West,North East, and Yorkshire and Humberside. Given this spread, andthe nature of some of these projects, it is perhaps not surprisingthat almost two thirds of our respondents (65%) are rurallylocated, while 23% are in urban areas and 12% in suburbs. Onerespondent explained the relevance of community energy for theirrural location: “Our primary purpose is to produce electricity asour community is not on the national grid” and another stated that“Our local geography in Cumbria has great renewable energypotential that has yet to be realised.”

4.2. Who sets up and runs community energy groups and projects?

The origins of the groups are very strongly rooted in civilsociety: well over half (59%) were set up by individuals, and afurther third (34%) by pre-existing community groups. This indi-cates that the community energy sector is predominantly citizen-led and community-based from the outset (as opposed to projectsbeing set up by businesses or local authorities and later involvingcommunity groups). The number of UK community energyprojects has risen rapidly in the last few years: Fig. 3 shows thegrowth of the sector over time, revealing a sharp rise from the mid

2000s: 79% of the projects still running were less than five yearsold (formed 2007–2011). The longest-standing project was insti-gated in 1996, and the average age of groups still operating is4.2 years.

4.2.1. Objectives of community energy projectsOur survey uncovered a wide range of goals from these

community energy projects. From a list of possible options,respondents identified an average of 8 objectives per project(Fig. 4). This plurality of objectives is summed up by these examplestatements of purpose: “To achieve financially viable energyprojects which deliver social, environmental, sustainable andeconomic benefit to our parish and surrounding districts,” “Helpingpeople to save money on their energy bills and live more

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989982

sustainable lives” and “To achieve resilient villages we believe wemust develop sustainable strategies using renewable resources.”The most commonly cited single objective was saving money onenergy bills (reported by 83% of projects), for instance one groupelaborated “It appears to us that the source of interest in sustain-able energy is ‘saving money’ rather than any real interest inclimate change or reduced carbon footprint” and another remar-ked the income and savings are significant and have led to morehouseholders in the village installing energy efficiency and energygeneration systems.” Other goals given by more than half therespondents were: reducing carbon dioxide emissions (cited by80%, e.g. “although we don't push carbon emission reduction, itis clearly an important benefit of renewable energy generation”),improving local energy independence (60%), community empow-erment (57%) and generating income for the community (52%).Substantial minorities also aimed to improve their local

0

10

20

30

40

50

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Community Energy In The UK: Growth of a sector over time

Num

ber o

f gro

ups

Year of group formation

Fig. 3. Chart showing year of formation of UK Community Energy Groups.

ALL ECONOMICSaving money on energy bills

Generating income for community Tackling fuel poverty

Improving local economySkills developmentLocal job creation

ALL ENVIRONMENTReducing carbon dioxide emissions

Improving local environment

ALL SOCIALCommunity wellbeing and health

Improving education Social cohesion Social inclusion

Creating volunteering opportunities

ALL POLITICALCommunity empowerment

Influencing sustainability/energy policyCommunity leadership

ALL INFRASTRUCTURALImproving energy independence

Community building refurbishment

0 20

Fig. 4. Objectives of UK Com

environment, tackle fuel poverty, influence wider sustainabilityand climate change policies, improve community health andwellbeing, etc. The objectives are also grouped into five broaddimensions of factors: economic (eco), environmental (env), social(soc), political (pol) and infrsatructral change (inf) (shown inFig. 4). This reveals that overall, economic objectives were themost prominent (held by 96% of groups), followed by environ-mental (88%), social (73%), political (73%) and infrastructural(68%) goals.

4.2.2. Community energy activitiesGiven these multiple and plural objectives, how then do

community energy groups aim to achieve their goals? Respon-dents’ groups were involved in two distinct types of activity:sustainable energy generation (82%) and energy-conservation(86%). Two thirds (68%) of the groups are engaged in bothdomains, revealing again the holistic and multi-faceted nature ofthese community energy projects. Figs. 5 and 6 illustrate thebreakdown of activities in each domain.

40 60 80 100

% of groups

munity Energy Groups.

Solar PVSolar thermal

Ground source heat pumpsOnshore Wind

Air source heat pumpsBiomass

HydroCombined heat and power

Energy from wasteTidal

Wave

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

1%

1%

2%

3%

14%

14%

16%

20%

22%

23%

71%

Energy generation activities (% of the respondents active in this area who gave details)

Fig. 5. Energy generation activities of UK Community Energy Groups.

Newsletters

Public meetings

Using energy efficient appliances

Stall at events

Wall/loft insulation

Community notice boards

Engaging with schools

Leaflets media coverage

Energy monitors

Auditing/footprint approaches

Giving out freebies

Discussion groups

Training sessions/seminars

Film showings

Thermal imaging

Educational visits

Award/incentive schemes

Pledges

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Energy conservation activities (% of the respondents active in this area who gave details)

Fig. 6. Energy conservation activities of UK Community Energy Groups.

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989 983

Turning first to a breakdown of the projects involved in energygeneration, we found that projects were using an average of1.9 renewable technologies each, and the field was clearly domi-nated by installations of solar photovoltaic renewable technologies(71%). The next most common types were solar thermal (23%),ground source heat pumps (22%), onshore wind (20%), air sourceheat pumps (16%), biomass (14%) and hydroelectric power (14%).Interestingly, previous work has highlighted solar thermal as themost common renewable energy technology employed by com-munity energy groups (Walker et al., 2005), but it is clear thatrecent policy changes and financial incentives towards solarelectricity has shaped the current market for community-basedenergy initiatives.

In contrast, the projects working on energy saving demonstrateda more diverse set of activities, with an average 7.3 measures each.Among these projects, the two most common initiatives werenewsletters (66%) and public meetings (65%), followed by usingenergy efficient appliances (61%), stalls at events (57%) and wall/loftinsulation (55%). Many of these activities are concerned withinformation-provision, presumably adopting an information-deficitapproach to behaviour change and energy conservation. Suchawareness-raising activities are perhaps less tangible and demand-ing than other activities requiring installation of new technologies,or learning new skills. Such technological solutions were lesspopular, for example, energy monitors (36%), energy auditing or car-bon footprint approaches (36%) and thermal imaging app-roaches (27%).

4.3. How successful are community energy projects?

Encouragingly, over three quarters of the respondents (75%) feltthat they were achieving their objectives quite well or very well,and only 7% felt they were not meeting their aims. Similarly, 77% feltpositive that their projects would be successful or very successful,while only 8% felt they would not succeed. Indicating the tangibleachievements of the sector, and the experiences of our respondents,61% of our respondents had successfully set up projects (including21% who had gone on to a subsequent community energy project).

A quarter (25%) were in the middle of setting up their projects, and10% were at the stage of considering a community energy initiative.Looking forward, of the respondents who had ‘future plans’ in termsof sustainable energy, 52% planned to try out other energy-savingapproaches or sustainable energy technologies, and a further 29%planned to expand their existing activities. A fifth (19%) just wantedto focus on consolidating their current activities.

5. Factors influencing the development of community energy

In order to grasp the range and extent of key factors and issuesthat have influenced the development of community energysector, we undertook a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportu-nities and threats) analysis, asking groups to identify the keyinternal and external factors, which had both positive and negativeimpacts on their projects. These results are shown in Table 1 andare discussed in the following sections, relating them to the fivethematic sets of issues identified above.

5.1. Group factors

As shown above, UK community energy groups are predomi-nantly set up by individuals and existing groups coming togetheraround specific sustainable energy-related objectives. Almost halfour survey respondents (48%) reported that the qualities of thegroup itself were critical strengths, making this the most impor-tant success factor overall. Within this, the main aspect cited(by 37%) was the characteristics of the group and its members(e.g. determination and commitment of key individuals to drivethe project forwards), followed by 17% who mentioned particularskills held by group members (negotiation, accountancy, engineer-ing, planning); a shared group vision was important to a fewrespondents. In contrast, very few problems with the group'scomposition and character were listed as weaknesses, with only3% identifying issues such as poor group management or lack ofdirection. To some extent this is unsurprising, as presumably

Table 1Success factors and obstacles facing community energy groups.

Success factors Obstacles

Internal to the group STRENGTHS WEAKNESSESAll group factors 48% Group management, direction 3%

Qualities of group 37%Skills among group 17% All project obstacles 71%Group vision 4% Need time/volunteers 18%

Need funding/access to finance 31%

All project factors 19% Need expertise/tech advice 8%Project management 10% Specific issues to their project 17%Specific/technical aspects 7% Need to engage with community 2%Community engagement 5%

External to the group OPPORTUNITIES THREATSAll local external factors 4% All external obstacles 33%

Alternative culture/social capital 3% Government policy/changes 14%Geographical location 2% Planning restrictions/hurdles 10%

Other bureaucracy 8%

All support factors 42% Lack of support from other actors 4%Parent/linked org support 6% Public apathy/attitudes/NIMBYs 26%Community support 9%Local organisations’ support 9%Local authorities’ support 4%Network organisations’ support 15%Consultants’ support 6%

All policy factors 30%Funding/grants 24%Policy support e.g. FITs/RHI 10%

All wider contextual factors 10%Rising energy prices/recession 8%Awareness of CC/energy issues 4%

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989984

groups that had real difficulties forming and working togetherwould not be operational, and so the survey has an inherent biastowards successful groups.

Given the largely informal origins of many of these groups,what resulting group structures are adopted? We found that athird of our respondents (35%) were operating as informal groups(comprising 20% working independently and 15% working as partof a large formal initiatives or programmes). Other commonstructures were charitable incorporated organisations (23%), chari-table social enterprises (18%) and limited companies with socialpurposes (16%). Some indicated that they were in the process ofregistration or planning to get registered as a group. This suggeststhat having formal organisational structure is a part of develop-ment processes, for example, for funding or tax purposes, all ofwhich would be a sign of the institutionalisation which may berequired to progress the objectives of the group.

5.2. Project factors

In contrast with the preceding section, we found that successfactors relating to the projects themselves were only moderatelyimportant (reported by 19%), and tended to focus on aspects ofproject management, dealing with specific technical issues and soon. However, project-related obstacles were by far the mostsignificant group of negative influences facing the groups (71%).Principal among these is a need for funding or access to finance(31% identified this weakness). We found that the vast majority ofour survey respondents (88%) had one or more sources of income.Two thirds received grant funding (69%), and other significantsources were income from energy generation (34%), and donations(23%). It is noteworthy that many of the listed income streams areintermittent, for example grant funding, sales/event income (15%),sponsorship (5%), prizes (5%) or represent sums that need repayingsuch as a share offer (14%) and loans (19%). Some respondents

indicated that they were relying on the generosity of core membersand parent organisations: “Group members are paying small costslike venue hire and print costs at present out of their own pockets.”This indicates that groups are drawing on their own personalresources to meet the short-term financial needs of the group,and illustrates a local temporary adaptability, but a distinct lack ofstrategic financial resilience or capacity-building in the face ofchanging external conditions and opportunity structures.

Grant funding is clearly the major source of financial support ofthese projects, and of the whole sample, 72% had been successfulin winning grant funding, while a further 10% had applied butbeen unsuccessful (this might indicate a bias towards ‘winners’ inour sample, and highlight the need to study more failed projects tounderstand their struggles). Seven per cent were planning to applyfor funding, and only 11% had not done so, and had no plans to inthe future. This finding reflects the timing of our survey, as whilegrant-winners feature heavily in our sample, the future of com-munity energy seems to be moving away from a grant-fundedmodel, towards economically sustainable business models invol-ving revenue-generation (the majority listed income generation asan objective), but success at achieving this source of income isperhaps only starting to be evident.

A shift in the form of governmental financial support, fromgrants for the capital costs of installing equipment to clean energycash back schemes (e.g. the Feed in Tariffs for low carbonelectricity and the Renewable Heat Incentive for renewable heatpayments) would reduce one of key funding opportunities forcommunity energy projects. This change has coincided with otherinnovative support measures, for example, providing loanstowards the high-risk, pre-planning consent stages of renewableenergy projects, or companies installing renewable technologiesfor free in return for tariff payments. Thus, the clean energy cashback schemes seem to offer a long-term incentive for somecommunities to establish revenue generating sustainable energy

None

1 to 10

11 to 20

21 to 30

31 to 40

41 to 50

51 to 100

101 to 499

500+

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

% of groups

Num

ber o

f sup

porte

rs

Fig. 9. Number of supporters in UK Community Energy Groups.

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989 985

projects. Yet, it would be premature to assume that such emergingopportunities are equally open to all interested communities.Another novel funding mechanism which is becoming moreprominent is Social Investment Funding, which in the UKdraws capital from the government's Big Society Bank (money indormant bank accounts) as well as building the market for privateand charitable investment in social purpose enterprises whichexpect a social or financial return on investment (Big SocietyCapital, 2013). To the extent that social finance aims for multiplesocial impacts (rather than narrow energy targets and mainstreamcommercial viability), and recognises non-financial outcomes asvaluable, this may prove to be a more beneficial source of capitalfinance for future developments in the sector.

On the other hand, we found that over half the projects (55%)did not have any financial surplus, which may reflect the fact thatnot all community energy projects require income or a tradingsurplus to operate. A third of our respondents (32%) said that theyused their surplus to tackle other social, economic and environ-mental issues within the community. For instance, one organiserreported “We intend to use the income from the hydro scheme tofund ‘greening’ measures in the community, initially throughgrants for which parishioners can apply to improve the energy-efficiency of their homes” and another said “We are workingtowards generating a financial surplus from community ownedrenewables to invest in creating the low carbon infrastructurerequired locally and specifically to allow us to implement ourfifteen year local resilience community action plan.” Others spenttheir surplus further developing and growing their existing energyproject (19%), instigating a different type of sustainable energyproject (13%) or supporting other community energy groups (5%).

The second most-cited weakness (by 18%) was a lack of time and/or volunteers to carry out the project work. Since these projects arecommunity-based initiatives, we seek to understand their scale interms of three dimensions of participation: active core members,employees and wider supporters in the community—illustrated inFigs. 7–9 (this latter dimension in the following section). Surveyrespondents reported having between 1 and 200 active coremembers (committed individuals - people who spend time, andshare their experience, skills and expertise to run their communityenergy projects), with a mean of 13 and a median of 6. Threequarters of the respondents (74%) had 10 or fewer core members.

Reflecting the highly voluntary nature of this sector, the numberof employees these projects has was far smaller: this ranged fromnone to 250, with a mean of 3.6; although as 68% reported no

1 to 3

4 to 6

7 to 10

11 to 20

21 to 50

50+

0 10 20 30 40

% of groups

Num

ber o

f cor

em

embe

rs

Fig. 7. Number of core members in UK Community Energy Groups.

None

1 to 2

3 to 10

11+

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

% of groups

Num

ber o

fE

mpl

oyee

s

Fig. 8. Number of employees in UK Community Energy Groups.

employees at all, this data is clearly skewed by a small number oflarger organisations for whom community energy is only a smallpart of their activities—notably two schools (250 and 32 employ-ees), a wildlife centre (35 employees) and a community develop-ment organisation (60 employees). Encouragingly for the sector, athird of the groups (32%) had grown over the last year, and over half(57%) have remained stable. Only 11% reported their groups declin-ing. Other project-related obstacles were very specific to particularprojects such as technical problems, siting issues and so on(reported by 17%), and a need for technical expertise and adviceto fill skills and knowledge gaps in the group (8%).

5.3. Community factors

This set of issues overlaps somewhat with the previous section,and focuses on two separate but related aspects relating tocommunity. The first is the role of project-level activities tospecifically engage with local communities, which were seen asa relatively minor strength or weakness, depending on how wellthese activities were deemed to have been carried out.

The second relates to wider (external) community support andengagement, which was held to be a success factor (opportunity)for 9% of projects, but a lack of this public engagement and interestwas a significant threat reported by 26% of respondents. Whenconsidering the support from wider communities, overall ourrespondents reported having between zero and 2000 supporters,with a mean of 168 and a median of 38 (Fig. 9). The number ofsupporters was quite low, overall, with a quarter of the respon-dents (24%) having up to 10 supporters, and half of all respondents(50%) having up to 30 supporters. The resulting figures with alarge skew towards groups with 100–499 supporters may be dueto our respondents including supporting partners in other agen-cies and organisations, or who were part of institutes with a largenumber of members (e.g. schools, churches, development associa-tions). Activities relating to profile-raising and face-to-face com-munity engagement are discussed in the next section.

5.4. Networking and partnership factors

The importance of forging supportive partnerships and net-working links with external organisations is highlighted by the42% of the groups who gave this as a success factor, making it thesecond-largest opportunity (in contrast, the lack of this supportwas only mentioned as a threat by 4%). Community energy groupsoften work in partnership with other organisations, averaging2.7 partners per project. These partnerships were most promi-nently with Local Authorities (60%), and other community groups(53%), but also with businesses, schools, NGOs/charities, andnational government departments (see Fig. 10). The majority(88%) of respondent groups were leading their sustainable energyprojects within these partnerships.

Table 2Geographical location of communities providing and receiving help to communityenergy groups.

Location ofcommunities fromwhom help wasreceived % (147networkties) (%)

Location ofcommunitiesto whom helpwas given %(157 networkties) (%)

Local 34 30Within county 52 55Other counties withincountry

14 13

Other countries within UK 0 2Outside UK 1 0

Local authority

Other community groups

Business/private company

Schools

NGO/Charity

Government department

Regional development agency

Universities

Faith organisations

European agency

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

3

12

13

16

24

26

29

36

53

60

% of groups

Fig. 10. Partner organisations working with UK community energy groups.

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989986

We found that networking is a key activity for the UK'scommunity energy sector: we asked respondents to name up tofive other community energy groups who they had given help to,five they had received help from, and up to five support organisa-tions or networks they were involved with. Almost three quartersof our survey respondents (73%) were engaged in some form ofnetworking with other community energy groups and/or withorganisations and networks. We discuss these two types ofnetworking in turn. First, interactions with other communityenergy initiatives were significant. Overall, 40% of our samplehad received help from other community energy groups (aver-aging 1.9 sources of help), and 38% had provided help to othercommunity energy groups (averaging 2.2 recipients). An analysisof the geographical proximity of the other communities involvedreveals that networking with others within their localities(i.e. villages, towns, cities) and county is the most significant forthe sector, compared with national or UK-wide networking. Asshown in Table 2, more than 80% of our respondents’ group-to-group networking activities (both giving and receiving help)occurred within their own counties. Three community energygroups were mentioned by more than two respondents as aprovider of help: OVESCO (3 times), Low Carbon Oxford North (4times) and Low Carbon West Oxford (6 times).

The kinds of help exchanged between communities were bothpractical and intangible. For example, respondents indicated thatthey shared useful contacts, lease documents, grant applicationforms, equipment and office space, all of which can have imme-diate and tangible impacts to set up and develop projects.In addition, communities shared ideas and gained inspiration fromeach other.

Second, and in addition to these reciprocally supportive linksbetween community energy projects, links with intermediary

organisations and networks was also important. More than halfthe respondents (58%) reported active networking with suchorganisations (averaging 2.9 each). We coded the named orga-nisations into three categories: regional, country-level and theUK-wide depending on their geographical coverage and remit.Regional organisations operate in sub-national areas within acountry, such as local authorities, county-level networks (e.g.Action with Communities in Cumbria), branches of nationalorganisations (e.g. Friends of the Earth Birmingham). Country-level organisations were those which aimed to cover their respec-tive countries (e.g. Locality (England), Energy Saving ScotlandAdvice Centre, Environment Wales). UK-wide organisations andnetworks cover all countries in the UK; in addition to the publicsector and third sector organisations operating throughout thewhole UK (e.g. the Energy Saving Trust, Transition Network),this category includes private sector businesses (installers andconsultants), whose customer base is not limited by geography.The types of organisations and networks named were very diverse,including those which are needed to set up and run a project (e.g.British Hydro Association, Climate Challenge Fund Programmes),and those which involve shared interests other than sustainableenergy (e.g. Christian Ecology Link, Community CompostingNetwork). Respondents were engaged with the named organisa-tions as members and/or partners, or as subjects of case studieswritten by the organisations and receivers of grants or awards. Inaddition to receiving technical advice, respondents were involvedin lobbying, campaigning, networking and various publicity activ-ities through the organisations.

Due to the widely dispersed nature of our sample, our networkanalysis found that out of 130 named regional organisations, onlytwo were named three or more times: Community Action GroupsOxfordshire (6 times) and Oxfordshire Climate Xchange (4 times).At country-level and UK-wide, where key groups and organisa-tions were mentioned more frequently (due to their wider cover-age), we identify the significant network hubs, and these arepresented in a sociogram (Fig. 11).

The Transition Network was the most commonly namedorganisation (by 12 respondents) followed by Community EnergyScotland (11) and the Energy Saving Trust (10). Others which werenamed more than three times included the Low Carbon Commu-nities Network (8), Energyshare (7), the Development TrustsAssociation Scotland (7), the Centre for Sustainable Energy (6),Co-operatives UK (6), Carbon Leapfrog (5), Community Power-down Scotland (4) and Locality (4). Whilst six of these organisa-tions specialise in sustainable energy, it is notable that alternative(e.g. Transition Network) and conventional (e.g. DevelopmentTrusts Association Scotland, Locality) community developmentorganisations, and business associations (e.g. Cooperatives UK)also played a key role.

The sociogram shows that community energy groups in Scot-land, Wales and Northern Ireland tend to work with organisationsbased in their own country, whereas community energy groups inEngland appeared to be engaged with the UK-wide organisations(which tend to be located in England) as well as organisationsoperating only in England. This tendency was also found innetworking between community groups and organisations at alllevels including regional bodies, as shown in Table 3. This revealsthat while 41% of the networking ties from English communityenergy groups were with UK-wide organisations, the figure is only15% for Scottish groups, 7% for Welsh groups, and none at all forthe Northern Irish groups. Unsurprisingly, groups in each countryhave no network ties with organisations whose remit is a differentcountry, but the over-reliance on country-specific organisationssuggests that there is some isolation of community energy groupsin Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales from organisations whoseremit is to support community energy UK-wide. This may reflect

Fig. 11. Sociogram of the UK Community Energy sector's networking with country-level and the UK-wide organisations.

Table 3Geographical analysis of networking between community energy groups and networks/organisations operating at regional, country and UK-wide levels.

Geographical area covered by the named networks/organisations (% of ties from communities in eachcountry)

Country of community energy group (total number of ties) England Scotland Wales Northern Ireland UKEngland (241) 58% 0 0 0 42%*

Scotland (59) 0 85% 0 0 15%Wales (14) 0 0 93% 0 7%Northern Ireland (5) 0 0 0 100% 0

n Includes 0.4% international outside UK.

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989 987

greater convenience and better support from local national orga-nisations which are better connected with local policy domains.

Given that networking and mutual support is such an importantfactor for many community energy groups, it is unsurprising that themajority of our respondents (71%) undertook activities to raise theirprofile and share their experiences, often through a variety ofchannels. Of those who gave further details, the most common activitywas gaining publicity through the networks they were involved with(26%), followed by local media and press (25%), giving talks atseminars and actively participating in events (23%), their own website(20%), national press/media (16%) and coverage on others’ websites(10%). Some of them promoted their groups through personal visits,publishing their own newsletters and leaflets, were featured in casestudies or using their own mailing list and press releases. Typically, avariety of profile-raising strategies is employed, and one groupexplained their promotional activities in this way: “We led a tour oflocal homes with solar PV and solar thermal panels a fortnight ago. Iwould hope to see us expanding this, publishing (paper and online) a

booklet with people's solar panel experiences and publishing a bookletfor local homes on how best they can save energy.” These kinds ofactivities indicate that face-to-face contact and direct communityengagement is important to community energy projects, and a keyelement of what they do, reiterating claims that local knowledge andnetworking is crucial for the success of these projects. However,indirect contacts such as media and websites were more commonlyused (79% of those engaged in publicity) than direct person-to-personapproaches (28%). It is striking that of our whole sample, less than half(46%) are publicising themselves through the media (all forms) andonly 36% are using the internet to promote their activities.

5.5. Policy factors

The final set of issues we consider relate to policy frameworksand wider regulatory contexts, which were reported by 30% ofrespondents as important external opportunities for communityenergy. This primarily related to grant funding structures (24%),

G. Seyfang et al. / Energy Policy 61 (2013) 977–989988

and secondarily to financial incentive policies such as the Feed-inTariff and Renewable Heat Incentive (10%). Clearly, some groupswere able to take good advantage of the opportunities afforded bycurrent policies. On the other hand, a significant number (14%)found that policy and regulatory threats were a real problem to theprojects. This related mainly to recent changes in governmentrenewable energy incentive structures which caught severalgroups unawares and undermined their efforts; other problemscame from planning hurdles (10%) and other bureaucracy whichwas perceived to block efforts to develop community energy.

We explored whether and how the community energy sectorwas active in trying to influence wider sustainability or climatechange policies. Almost half the survey respondents (45%) statedthat they were indeed engaging with policy either directly orindirectly. A third (33%) of these reported that they did this bybeing a member of an organisation or network (thereby demon-strating the importance of intermediary organisations for thesector (Hargreaves et al., in press), and a quarter (28%) citedinvolvement in Local Authority planning and development plans,and responding to government consultations or being involvedwith a government department (23%). Fewer groups were lobby-ing MPs and MEPs (15%), or attending events or campaign meet-ings in support of sustainability policies (14%). Finally, we note thatsome projects identified wider social factors as opportunities forcommunity energy, such as energy price rises and growingconcern about climate change, indicating that broad social trendsmay be pointing in the direction of a growing community energysector.

6. Conclusions

Community energy has been supported by successive UK govern-ments aiming to harness its potential to support sustainable energytransitions. Our survey of UK community energy groups has soughtto provide robust evidence of the scope, scale, character, activitiesand challenges faced by the sector, to support such policymaking.This quantitative, UK-wide study has confirmed the findings ofprevious qualitative research in the sector, and brought an additionaldistributional perspective on the specific characteristics, and therelative importance of particular factors influencing the sector'sdevelopment. Furthermore, it reveals tensions and challenges echoedin other civil society and social economy sectors (Amin et al., 2002),prompting similar reflections on the potential and limitations of thecommunity energy sector and measures required to support it(below). With the caveat that our findings are specific to their timeand context, and that the field of community energy is rapidlychanging and dynamic, our research has revealed several key issuesto be addressed when considering the further development of thecommunity energy sector, and we make some policy recommenda-tions on the basis of our analysis.

First, this is a highly diverse sector representing many types ofactor and organisational forms, multiple sets of objectives (not allof which relate to energy), holistic and multi-faceted repertoires ofaction, and many different practical strategies and technologies toachieve their goals. It is therefore exceedingly difficult to pinpointspecific features of the sector as a whole, or to aggregate thesediverse groups and their activities into simple categories. Com-munity energy is not reducible to a single entity. This keyobservation has several ramifications for governing the sector,not least because although some groups do have ambitions toexpand and grow, others are simply providing local solutions tolocal needs as an end in itself, and have no desire to expand in theway that policymakers might hope. Community energy is notnecessarily a tool to be wielded by energy ministers aiming forwidespread change; some of the sector is content to remain small

and self-contained. The multiplicity of the sector's objectiveshighlights the need for joined-up thinking among governmentdepartments; the community energy sector addresses policy goalscovering a number of different government departments, notsolely energy and climate change. There is a challenge here forgovernment and the sector to relate to each other more effectivelyto best achieve the sustainability goals (including but extendingbeyond energy) of these groups. Performance measurement andproject monitoring must acknowledge multiple sets of objectives,for example, and avoid using single-dimensional criteria (such ascarbon dioxide emissions reduced or kilowatt hours of energyproduced) when Big Society Capital (2013) ‘multi-criteria apprai-sals would be more appropriate to capture the full range ofoutcomes.

Second, the civil society basis of the sector is fundamental to itscharacter and to its success at engaging with local communities,and makes the sector quite distinct from the large energycompanies these community groups are aiming to work alongside.This uneven playing field points to vulnerabilities and tensionsinherent in this model—the growth potential of voluntary associa-tions is uncertain, and hurdles to be overcome in becoming morebusinesslike and commercial. The relative balance of internal andexternal success factors and obstacles is such that while a goodstrong group is a major strength, there are project-related weak-nesses (time, volunteers, money, material resources) that aredifficult to meet internally. There is a limit to how much groupscan achieve on their own. Instead, external sources of support arerequired to succeed and this indicates the strong need forconsistent policy support, as well as intermediary networks, toensure community energy projects have the resources they needto progress and achieve their objectives. Furthermore, the policyshift from grant-funded projects to a more broad-based revenue-generating business model will have serious implications forprojects in the sector, not all of whom will be able to adapt tothe new policy regime.

To conclude, our research has revealed a wealth of civil societyactivity in the field of sustainable energy, tackling a wide range ofsustainable energy and related issues, and growing as a sector.With appropriate policy support and clear funding streams, androbust intermediary organisations to share learning, we arecautiously optimistic that community energy can continue to growand achieve its potential as a key player in the transition to asustainable energy system.

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without thegenerous assistance of the survey respondents or of the Engineer-ing and Physical Sciences Research Council and EDF Energy-funded ‘Community Innovation for Sustainable Energy’ project(Grant ref: F/00 204/AM), and we thank our colleagues on thisproject for comments on previous versions of this article.

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