Press release

Government backs local and community energy with historic investment

10 February 2026

Community Energy England welcomes the government’s Local Power Plan, which will deliver “the biggest public investment in community energy in this country’s history” with £1 billion invested over this parliament.

This will mobilise significant amounts of extra private and community investment in local, replicable energy solutions.

The Plan seeks to catalyse the community energy sector to grow so that every community will have the opportunity, capability and support to take control of their own energy future and share directly in the benefits. It recognises that “the cumulative effect could be transformational for our energy system.”

Emma Bridge, Chief Executive of Community Energy England said:

“This is great news for communities across the country. £1bn of investment in local and community energy is a huge vote of confidence in what people can achieve when they’re given the chance to lead the energy transition themselves.

Community energy delivers far more than clean power – it keeps value local, cuts bills, creates jobs and helps make the energy system fairer. The Local Power Plan shows a clear commitment to putting communities at the heart of our energy future, and we’re excited to continue working with Great British Energy and the government to turn this funding into real projects on the ground as quickly as possible.”

What will the Local Power Plan do?

The Plan aims to support over 1,000 local and community energy generation projects and to boost shared community ownership in the growth of clean energy. These projects will be a mixture of locations, size, and technologies to ensure that a wide range of projects and organisations are supported.

Great British Energy will work collaboratively with partners to provide financial investment, deliver capacity building and business support and to remove barriers. CEE will continue to work to ensure that the community energy sector is able to help shape policy and delivery.

CEE is already working to share knowledge and best practice within the sector through the UK Energy Learning Network. GBE’s capacity building work will complement this initiative.

GBE will provide grants for feasibility and development of projects, loans for construction and shared ownership by communities, and targeted investment in specific local projects. A Partnership Fund will support collaboration between local authorities and community energy. 

More details of funding and support will be published in the summer in the GBE Product Portfolio. 

Community energy is committed to developing ‘Smart Local Energy Systems’ (SLES). These are holistic projects that do ‘more than generation’, supporting energy saving and demand management, meeting the challenge of low carbon heat and transport, tackling fuel poverty and building retrofit. The Plan commits to exploring the potential of “Smart Community Energy” as it renames SLES, and what benefits it can offer, including cost-saving to the wider energy system.

GBE is mainly focussed on delivering generation to meet the government’s ambitious Clean Power by 2030 targets. The government will need to treat the energy system holistically and support communities to create these Smart Local Energy Systems delivering energy saving, demand management and retrofit. The Local Power Plan will need to work alongside the government’s recent Warm Homes Plan which dedicated £15 billion to energy saving/fuel poverty and retrofit. Its area based approach should harness community energy’s power as trusted local advocates and deliver partners. Community energy work in this area has been found to deliver at least £9 of social benefit for every £1 spent.

The Plan recognises that “the energy system isn’t structured to recognise, encourage or financially reward locally produced energy.” Reform to the energy system is still needed so that these local systems are integrated into a more flexible and responsive energy system, and can be rewarded for the value they deliver.

The Plan also commits to:

• Making the market more accessible for community energy so that it can earn reliable income from its activities to enable long term growth, supplying local businesses and the public sector with local clean power.
• Consulting on mandatory shared ownership by communities in the vast growth of clean energy generation. This will be key to delivering real, long-term benefits from this transformation as well as getting community buy-in.
• Working with partners to support community energy projects to connect to the grid and to reforming the planning system to better enable ‘community-led’ initiatives.

Community Energy England will continue to work with GB Energy and its partners to make sure that policy is developed and delivered to ensure maximum growth in community energy and the transformation of the energy system to give more power, control, wealth and benefit to local communities and people.

ENDS

Image credit: Westmill Energy

Government press release

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. See the government press statement including statement from CEOs of Community Energy England, Community Energy Scotland and Community Energy Wales.
2. The Local Power Plan is published here.
3. Community Energy England (CEE) is the network and representative body for community energy in England with 330+ members. It works closely with government, GBE, agencies and partners to create the environment where community energy can thrive. It also collaborates on the UK Energy Learning Network, building capacity in the sector.