Gordon Walker and Patrick Devine-Wright assess community renewables

When faced with the extraordinary scale of the challenges involved in reducing carbon emissions, it is easy for local actions to appear futile. If China is on a trajectory of growth that in terms of total carbon emissions is projected to overtake that of the USA, is there any point in people in the UK reducing their infinitesimally small current and future contribution to the global carbon footprint?

For an increasing number of people, communities and businesses in the UK, the answer to that question is a clear ‘yes’. For some, it is a matter of doing the right thing and acting on responsibilities to current and future generations; for others, a more pragmatic need for the UK to lead by example and to realize the wider benefits that a more sustainable economy or lifestyle might bring.

Whatever the motive, we find many examples of initiatives that can contribute towards shifting to a low carbon economy, and each of these needs to be properly evaluated.

Community renewables

One such initiative, examined in a recently-completed research project,(1) is community renewable energy.

Community renewables sit somewhere between the big private windfarms of the major energy players and small microgen installations on domestic roofs. They involve many different forms of renewable energy technology – wind, solar, biomass, ground source heat pumps, microhydro – installed to supply electricity or heat to community buildings or to bring money and jobs into cooperative community ventures.

The development of such projects has been actively supported by government policy since 2001. We identified over 500 projects under development at the end of 2004, with many more since taken forward largely in rural communities across different parts of country. The alternative technology activists of the past have become the community project managers and consultants of the present, inspiring a diversity of people to become actively involved. 

Gamblesby

The small rural community of Gamblesby in Cumbria had endured foot and mouth and a decline in facilities to the point where only the village hall remained. This had fallen into disrepair, and badly needed a better heating system. In order to attract funding for renovation, the village hall committee of retired professionals, businessmen and local farmers produced a business plan that stressed renewable energy and materials and a high input of DIY from the village. With advice from the local support team of the Community Renewables Initiative, the committee obtained grants – including for under-floor heating fuelled by a ground source heat pump.

Villagers got involved in different ways: digging trenches in the car park for the underground piping, barrowing ballast and plumbing the system. The result was a heating system that was easy to use and economic to run. A phase 2 project involved the installation of a 6Kw wind turbine.

Outcomes

In the context of the carbon reduction agenda, this project may seem insignificant. However, such projects can set wider social dynamics in motion. In researching this and other case studies – including wind farms, biomass district heating systems and solar installations – we were able to examine what local people learnt from being involved.

We found that all the projects had some positive impact on local people’s understanding and support for renewable energy, and that there were spin-offs of various forms. In the case of Gamblesby, the project was being picked up through the web and site visits as an example for other villages to follow. Villagers had developed local expertise in ground source heat pump technology, and individual local villagers had been motivated to install microgeneration technology in their own homes. 

Such catalytic and positive outcomes are not always realized so readily. In one of our case studies, a community became very divided over the development of a small wind farm project set up by local farmers. Its claimed community credentials did not stop it being viewed, by some locals at least, as just as intrusive as any other wind farm.

Community benefits

We found that projects are most accepted and most productive when local people are extensively involved, and when there are clear beneficial collective outcomes for the community.

The research shows that there is much enthusiasm for a localized community approach to renewable energy becoming part of the hybrid and distributed form that low carbon energy generation in the UK will need to take. The approach is also an important part of the process through which policy initiatives can stimulate change and innovation at a local level.

Reference

1. The project was funded by the ESRC.

Professor Gordon Walker is at the Department of Geography and Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University

Dr Patrick Devine-Wright is at the Department of Architecture at Manchester University