Energy in Your Community: Our vision

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The Energy in Your Community project exists to engage with local communities to explore the possibilities of renewable energy generation, at a local level.

What we do

Energy in Your Community helps local people explore community-owned renewable energy together. If you’re new to the idea, find out what community-owned energy is and learn how other communities have made it work.

We guide communities through a clear, step-by-step journey, at their pace, so everyone makes decisions together and knows what happens next. We share skills and expertise with local groups who express an interest in community-owned energy generation, while keeping the community in control.

The process is exploratory and community driven, so each project is unique.

Through a series of workshops, we invite the local community to consider what renewables may be feasible in their area. We then explore what type, location and size they find acceptable, considering their feelings and attachment to their local landscape.

We publish our progress and broaden the conversation through regular surveys, to ensure the whole community has an opportunity to voice their views. Further down the line, we may combine work on potential locations with technical feasibility studies, as the process progresses.

At every stage, the community stays in control:

finding out what's involved
making informed decisions with confidence at every stage
if a project goes ahead, the community can also choose how to spend any community benefit

Why choose community-owned energy?

Select a topic below to find out more about why and how we're working to enable communities to explore the possibilities for community energy in their local area.

The benefits of community-owned energy

Community-owned projects aren’t like commercial energy projects, they're different because they're:

transparent and community-led: local people work together to make the decisions
tailored to local priorities: every conversation reflects what matters most in the area
giving back to the community, with profits reinvested locally: surplus funds support community projects
delivering community benefits: funding local initiatives, improving sustainability, and creating social impact
owned by the community: providing resilience and energy security through local renewable generation

How we support local people

We’ll help each community decide if community energy is for them, and if so, how to turn good ideas into real, deliverable projects by providing:

clear, accessible information: no need to be an expert
expert support: from first ideas to finding out if a site is feasible
partnership support: helping local groups to communicate and engage with their wider community
careful studies: every discussion considers local heritage and wildlife, amongst other factors
funding guidance: we have the experience and knowledge to help groups find and apply for the right grants, if a project goes ahead

Many people in Bath and North East Somerset already support local renewables. We make it easier to join in.

The journey

Our communities don’t need to figure everything out at once. We’re walking them through a clear, step-by-step journey:

First conversations: exploring what’s possible
Community workshops and public surveys: making sure every voice is heard
Funding applications: where communities want to go ahead, securing support for technical fact-finding on site feasibility, and advice about the planning process

Find out more

Find out how the project has evolved so far

Explore the progress of a typical community conversation