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The Local Power Plan: Frequently Asked Questions
The Local Power Plan is the government’s flagship policy for the community energy sector (read CEE’s press release on the Plan here). In this piece, we answer some of your questions on what the Plan contains, when it will be implemented and how community energy organisations can make the most of the opportunities it presents.
What is the Local Power Plan?
The Local Power Plan (LPP) is a government policy programme that aims to support local and community energy to grow. A mixture of grants, loans and direct finance will support over 1,000 projects by 2030. It also sets out plans to make policy and regulatory changes to remove barriers to success for a variety of types of community energy projects and enterprises.
How much funding will be available?
The Plan commits to investing up to £1 billion by 2030. This figure covers funding for all types of projects listed in the Plan including community energy, local government and partnership projects. It is not yet clear how much money will be allocated for each type of project. The funds will be administered by Great British Energy.
What types of projects will the Plan fund? And what about heat and energy efficiency projects?
The Plan will offer grants for community energy organisations to do feasibility and development work and for partnership projects between community energy organisations and local authorities. It will offer loans for construction and shared ownership projects. It will also provide direct investment for some local projects through a new Local Investment Fund.
GBE are formalising agreements with Mayoral Strategic Authorities and Combined Authorities to, among other things, grow local and community energy programmes. For a list of the authorities that have agreements already set up, see GBE’s Local Power Plan page.
The LPP is focused on energy generation projects (although it does commit to exploring options for promoting projects involving Smart Local Energy Systems). Heat and retrofit projects are expected to be covered through Warm Homes Plan Funding. However, given that several innovative community energy projects involve whole energy systems, including generation, heat, retrofit and energy advice, it will be important for the Local Power Plan and Warm Homes Plan to be mutually supportive and ensure that holistic projects are fundable. CEE will continue to advocate for a joined up approach.
The LPP also proposes a long-term plan to unlock investment in community energy. This will include supporting different types of repeatable business models, including Local Supply and long-term Power Purchase Agreements. Through this plan, GBE aims to wean the sector off dependency on grants. This is covered on pages 21 and 22 of the LPP.
When will funding become available?
The first grant schemes will be launched in Spring 2026 through the GBE Community Fund.. However, the full Local Product Portfolio, with the Funds mentioned above, will not come until Autumn 2026. The most recent round of funding for the GBE Community Fund closed in November 2025. We want to ensure that community energy organisations have access to some funding before the Local Power Plan funds are launched and are raising this with the government and GB Energy. In the interim we encourage community energy organisations to access other funding such as the Redress Fund ‘Just Transition Fund’, investment from your council’s CIL fund, We are looking at solutions to make these funds more usable, for example bridging loans for funds that pay in arrears. CEE’s Funding Opportunities page has a list of the funding that is potentially available for community energy projects.
See the full timeline as set out in the Plan below.
Is there anything I can do before the funding becomes available?
Yes. You can fill out GB Energy’s Expression of Interest form to let them know if you have a project in the pipeline that you could seek funding for. This does not commit you to anything but will show GBE that interest is high and will ensure you are kept up to date.
What does the Plan say about shared ownership projects?
The Plan will offer loans for communities looking to fund shared ownership projects. The government has already commissioned the creation of template documents to enable shared ownership which will be published this spring. However, a lack of funding has historically only been one barrier to shared ownership projects getting off the ground. Attracting interest from corporate partners to engage in these projects has held them back such that there are very few examples of them in the UK currently.
The Plan commits to consulting on making shared ownership mandatory for privately owned large scale renewable energy projects in 2026. CEE is very supportive of mandating shared ownership (for more information, read this briefing, written by Community Energy England, Community Energy Scotland and Community Energy Wales).
What does the Plan say about Smart Local Energy Systems?
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. GB Energy are also encouraging “code administrators, managers and industry to bring forward additional code modifications to enable local energy communities to share locally generated power and benefit from community energy” and “suppliers and market infrastructure providers to enable community energy schemes to access the energy market through community supply tariffs, peer-to-peer trading, local balancing, PPAs and to collaborate with service providers to support innovative models.”
While these commitments are vague, it is encouraging that GB Energy and the government are recognising the opportunities that Smart Local Energy Systems present. We will work with them to bring forward policy that enables these types of projects to scale.
What does the Plan say about connecting to the grid?
The Plan recognises the difficulty many community energy projects have connecting to the grid in a timely fashion (some waiting lists for connection are over a decade long). The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) will convene “new working groups with Ofgem and DNOs to explore tailored support for community energy projects looking to secure grid connections.”
What does the Plan say about capacity building?
GB Energy will work collaboratively with partners to provide financial investment, deliver capacity building and business support and to remove barriers. CEE is already working to share knowledge and best practice within the sector through the Energy Learning Network. GBE’s capacity building work will complement this initiative.