Press Story

With many of these buildings at the heart of communities struggling to raise funds and threatened with closure, this energy windfall has the potential to boost their stretched finances and aid their survival.

The ippr report Green Streets: Exploring the potential of community energy projects and British Gas data reveals some startling statistics about this green energy potential:

Solar panels on village halls and community centres could generate around £18 million a year through the Feed-In Tariff, a government scheme which pays households and organisations for generating their own electricity.
Pubs could earn £15million per year, while schools could earn £41million, enough to pay for over 2000 newly qualified teachers.
The money earned through the Feed-In Tariff is index linked and guaranteed for 25 years.

Community buildings also have the potential to save both cash and carbon dioxide by fully embracing renewable technology:

Schools, pubs, religious buildings, village and community halls and swimming pools across the UK could collectively provide the equivalent generating capacity as a medium sized standard gas power station (around 310MW).
This would also save around 145,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year - the equivalent of taking around 57,000 cars off the road.
Generating their own energy could also collectively save these community buildings over £17 million a year on their energy bills.

Matthew Lockwood, Associate Director and Head of Climate Change, ippr said:

"Micro-renewable technologies offer a fantastic opportunity for communities to show local commitment to global change. They can also help the Coalition Government kill two policy birds with one stone, since it wants both to be the 'greenest government ever' and to create a 'Big Society' where community organisations and volunteers play a much more important role in our lives.
"But this will not happen without the right enabling framework, and the Coalition Government should maintain the Feed-In Tariff for renewable electricity and commit to introducing similar support for renewable heat through the Renewable Heat Incentive in April 2011. It is then for communities, working in partnership with support providers and delivery companies, to grab a piece of the opportunity that is on offer."

Gearoid Lane, Managing Director of Communities and New Energy, British Gas said:

"The findings of this research are great news for British communities. As well as helping to keep local facilities open and serving their community, installing microgeneration on community buildings can have a great impact on helping to familiarise people with renewable technologies and make them more accessible.
At British Gas we know that one of the biggest barriers to the uptake of renewable technologies is concern about the upfront investment required to buy kit, such as solar panels. That's why we're running the Green Streets challenge and it's also why we're investing £15m to give free solar panels to schools, the community hub that stands to benefit most from microgeneration."

Notes to editors

1. The data in the release is based upon research from the British Gas Green Streets programme. Using these real life examples in the Green Streets programme (i.e. the potential energy savings and Feed-In Tariff payments of the community buildings involved in the 14 projects) we extrapolated the findings to take account of the number of each type of facility in the UK and their average size. For more information on Green Streets please go to www.greenstreets.co.uk. Data on the estimated number of each community building in the UK and the savings for the community hubs examined is available on request.

2. PlayDay 2010 Research on adults and loss of community spirit sourced from National Children's Bureau / ICM, August 2010.

3. The Feed-In Tariff is a Government incentive scheme encouraging people to install renewable energy systems such as solar panels. The scheme promises to reward investors in solar panels in three ways:

a) Firstly, you are paid the 'generation tariff', which is a direct payment from your energy supplier for each unit of electricity you generate. This starts at 41.3p per kilowatt/hour (kWh), and is fixed by statute to increase in line with the retail price index for the next 25 years.
b) The second saving is under the 'export tariff', which is a payment made for energy you export back into the electricity grid rather than use on-site. This pays an extra 3p per kWh.
c) Finally, you also make savings on your electricity bills as you no longer need to buy all your electricity from an external supplier.

4. Further details on the British Gas £15-million investment in British schools can be found here: http://www.centrica.com/index.asp?pageid=39&newsid=2029

Contact

Nyta Mann, Media Manager, ippr: 020 7470 6112 / 07979 602065 / n.mann@ippr.org