We recognise that people’s ownership of renewable energy is vital to win public support for the transition to renewables and ensure communities can benefit.

Under a joint Community Energy campaign we have teamed up with organisations from across Europe. Our aim is to:

• Speed up the development of renewable projects by supporting a favourable legislative environment
• Inform and educate policymakers, empowering them to put forward enabling frameworks
• Build a broad, public coalition in support of community renewable energy projects
• Inform and engage the public through workshops, street stalls, stunts and more.

To find out about our Community Power partners visit: www.communitypower.eu

Our report, Community Power Scotland: From Remote Island Grids to Urban Solar Co-operatives, shows the wonderful diversity of community energy projects across Scotland.

What is Community Energy?

The term community energy is used in a variety of different contexts including energy efficiency projects, grid management, collective power purchasing and energy generation. In addition, we might be talking about a geographic, local community or a community of interest.

As such we think it’s more useful to define community energy through common characteristics. These include:

• Ordinary people or citizens are involved in running the project through community groups such as cooperatives or development trusts
• There is a co-operative, democratic or specifically non-corporate structure
• There are tangible local benefits to people living or working close to projects
• The profits go back to the community or are re-invested in other community energy schemes.