Partner at SGH Martineau Paul Mountain this week said there was a gap in the market between micro-generation schemes serving a few households and fully-fledged businesses serving 1MW-plus loads. “The sector needs some kind of resources hub, maybe a community energy bank, certainly stronger champions to kick government into putting its money where its mouth is and enabling community energy to thrive,” said Mountain.
Mountain’s comment followed recent enthusiastic statements from Barker supporting community energy projects: “Community energy has the power to unleash a revolution that can genuinely challenge the status quo,” he said at a recent community energy event. Energy secretary Ed Davey said this summer: “I want nothing less than a community energy revolution.”
Speaj king at a recent community energy conference Mountain said community energy groups “should aspire to scale-up,” but he said many projects at the outset needed, “skilled people, guidance materials and access to finance, particularly for feasibility work.
He said community projects “can create employment and training opportunities; they can diversify into sympathetic projects and plough back surpluses; and they can offer good quality jobs across a range of activities, all underpinned by a sense of common purpose.”