Survey on fast track review of Feed in Tariffs for community projects
By Ed Mitchell 17th February 2011
If you are a community energy project, we need your input to support a swift response to possible changes to the Feed in Tariffs.
The UK energy secretary Chris Huhne recently announced a fast track review of the government’s guaranteed Feed in Tariffs (FiTs) for solar energy providers. This is in response to evidence that the tariffs, meant to support community groups, were being mopped up by big solar farms. FiTs have proven very popular with a range of community groups, from domestic installations to local communities, town halls, health trusts and more, so any blanket changes could discourage the big solar farms, but also the communities they were intended for. Ooops!
Read more about this on The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) website.
We think that there is a more sophisticated response to this, and hope that you can help us explore it and build a better case for change. Our friends in the Communities and Climate Action Alliance (CCAA) are going to discuss this with DECC, and need some input from community groups to ensure they’ve got the right message.
How can you help?
- Please do this 5 minute survey to inform CCAA of your thoughts
- Please pass this news on to your friends and contacts and other community energy projects
About The CCAA
The ‘Communities and Climate Action Alliance’ is an emergent body seeking to support community responses to climate change, and links some of the largest networks in the community climate change sector – The Low Carbon Communities Network (LCCN), Transition Network, Green Communities Network, Community Energy Practitioners Forum, ‘Local United’ and The Scottish Climate Challenge Fund Network.
The shared belief amongst the CCAA is that communities have a unique and critical role in helping the UK meet its national carbon reduction targets. Each of the member networks would contend that the communities’ role is currently poorly understood. It argues that national and local policy makers risk making policy decisions that are not as effective in the long term as they could be, because communities and community carbon reduction delivery models – such as social enterprise – are not an effective part of the strategic discussion.
Its purpose is:
- To demonstrate to government and other partners communities’ unique and critical role in helping deliver climate change targets
- To help build a sense of shared purpose and collective action amongst our members and across a range of key private and public sector partners aimed at lowering the barriers to community action on climate change
- To develop, in collaboration with key partners, a UK wide development plan which plays to partner strengths and which actively enables the potential for community action on climate change.
The benefits of working together as an alliance include:
- on-going understanding of each others’ activities, helping reduce duplication and increase cross fertilisation
- reduced time spent by each network on lobbying and partnership development with key stakeholders increased impact through more co-ordinated and coherent activity
Download a purpose and outline document about the CCAA here