Energy Learning Network

Powering forward community energy projects

The Energy Learning Network (ELN) is a UK-wide collaboration to boost the skills, confidence and capability of the community energy sector to grow and scale across the whole country.

It is a partnership between Community Energy England, the climate solutions charity Ashden, Centre for Sustainable Energy, and the leading community energy bodies in the other UK nations: Community Energy Scotland, Community Energy Wales, and Northern Ireland’s Action Renewables. The ELN is made possible thanks to four years of funding totaling £1.5 million from The National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund. The £1.5 million that this project has received is part of The National Lottery Community Fund’s wider commitment to support communities across the UK to take action on climate change.

What we deliver

Mentoring

Cooperation is at the heart of community energy, and our members have decades of experience to share. The ELN Mentoring programme pairs up new and growing entrants to the sector with experienced and established professionals. This ensures key learning is passed on and accelerates the pace at which community energy takes root in new areas.

This part of the project is currently in a pilot phase, but as we gain new funding to expand, we will open up to new cohorts, which will be posted on our opportunities page.

Regional networks

The ELN also includes funding to support the establishment of regional community energy support networks in underserved parts of the country. These will enable closer collaboration between neighbouring organisations, in-person networking, and closer coordination with their local authorities and electricity networks operators.

Following an application round, the first successful area of England to be supported is Greater Manchester, led by the Carbon Co-op.

Webinars

We are holding at least four England-focused ELN webinars each year on topics that are important to the growth of community energy. There are also UK-wide webinars, as well as others hosted by other ELN partners that come together to form a coherent programme of learning.

2025

For this year, our members said their main challenges have been recruiting new people to their organisations, raising money from the public via community share and bond offers, and finding the most viable business models. So we teamed up with Younity and Ethex to tackle these issues, covering Younity’s Community Energy Connect volunteering platform, and Ethex’s support for marketing community share and bond offers, their IFISA products, and membership registry platform.

We have two more webinars coming up this year, looking at Younity’s insights on the PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) market and upcoming local supply models, and the potential to grow rooftop community solar with the supermarkets and warehousing sector.

Upcoming webinars:

Previous webinars:

Topics for 2026

Next year, webinars will continue to explore new community energy business models, especially ones that support the Clean Power 2030 Mission and the Local Power Plan, like community wind, batteries and flexibility services.

Training and qualifications

Improving our professional skills and qualifications as a sector will help us become more impactful. We are currently drawing together a list of existing training that is relevant to the sector, as well as identifying gaps that need new courses to be developed.

This covers both the technical knowledge required to deliver renewable energy and advice projects, but also the softer core skills needed to start, manage and run an effective social enterprise.

What training is available for me?

Existing courses are below; we will continue to grow the list of relevant courses and degrees as we work with colleges and universities throughout the duration of the ELN programme.

Renewable Energy for Communities

Community Solar Foundation Course – Big Solar Co-op – Community Solar Foundation Course
Various Energy Short Courses – https://cat.org.uk/groups-learning/short-courses/
Heat Geek: Heat Pump Enlightenment for Industry Partners – Heat Pump Enlightenment for Industry Partners – Essential Enlightenment – Heat Geek eCourse

Running a successful social enterprise or cooperative

Stir to Action: Barefoot – How to establish and support a cooperative or community business barefoot
Cooperatives UK – Governance and Practitioner training Training events | Co-operatives UK

Community Energy Specialist Apprenticeship

This apprenticeship standard allows CE enterprises and local authorities to help people transition from being volunteers to paid work within the sector. Through the ELN, we will be working with the providers of this apprenticeship to bring the training content up to date and to help more people use it as a route to employment. Community energy specialist (level 4) – apprenticeship training course

Online resources

Throughout the ELN programme, we will publish and enhance the Online Resources available to the sector. Most of these can be found in our How To section. [link]

We will also develop and bring together open source project planning tools to make it easier to progress through the early feasibility stages of community energy development.

The following ELN guides have been published in the first year, focusing on evidencing the social impact that community energy can achieve.

Project development tools

These are open-access tools designed to speed up the design of community renewable energy projects.

Community Wind Turbines

Developed with funding from the ELN, VoteWind is our new open-source community wind planning map. Bringing together multiple planning constraints and wind speed data into a single visual map, it is designed to make it easier for our members and the wider public to identify sites in their local areas that are most suitable for a community wind turbine. This can then speed up the early feasibility process and guide people to the best resources in the sector to take their projects forward. Its 3D visualiser also gives people an early view of how it would look in their local landscape.

It is designed to work alongside other community engagement tools like Future Energy Landscapes, Community Energy GO, and the GB Energy Community Fund.

For wind project support, we also highly recommend contacting SIFFFT www.siffft.com

Rooftop Solar

Developed by ELN partners, Centre for Sustainable Energy’s Solar Wizard tool helps you produce building-specific estimates for solar energy generation for rooftops across your neighbourhood and the entire country.

Partnerships

A key workstream that Community Energy England is leading on is raising awareness and understanding about community energy with key delivery partners across the wider local energy system.

This includes local authorities, electricity networks, schools, the NHS, the Church of England and other faith networks, sports clubs, supermarkets, and others like GB Energy, the net zero hubs, and mayoral combined authorities.

By using our national oversight and convening role, we work with our equivalent national membership bodies and Net Zero leads in these institutions to make it easier for local community energy projects to make connections and get established.

If you would like to get involved in our Community Energy Partnerships work, please get in touch.

“The Energy Learning Network has a vital role to play in supporting the growth of community energy right across the UK. It will also amplify the amazing work already being done by communities to develop energy projects and services that generate so much more value than simply renewable energy. This is such an exciting time to be part of the community energy movement.”
Emma Bridge, CEE Chief Executive