Oldham Council leading the European COALESCE project

24/05/2019

COALESCE is a project aiming to increase the capacity for community based approaches to local renewable energy provision across Europe in order to reduce carbon emissions, increase energy security and tackle fuel poverty whilst driving ‘Green Growth’. The project will work with partners, led by Oldham Council, from Hungary, Italy, Spain, Germany, Bulgaria and Romania. Following a series of learning events, many of which were attended by Community Energy England, the project is now at a stage where each partner has to develop its own implementation proposals or Regional Action Plans, how the lessons learned from the project can be translated to action in their own regions to boost the community energy sector

For this project, community energy is defined as the provision of energy infrastructure, primarily renewable energy generating infrastructure but also energy efficiency measures, led by community groups and owned wholly or partly by local communities typically through the issue of community shares, using local supply chains and providing local employment opportunities, motivated by the objectives of environmental improvement and keeping the value of energy generation within the local population rather than it going to large national and multinational corporations. Although one key aspect of community energy is local community ownership of projects, this does not mean that finance for every development stage of a community energy project is easy to come by, or that the state should not support such projects either through direct or indirect means (grants, loans, expertise or market mechanisms).

The project seeks to increase investment in local community energy investment via support from Structural Fund and ETC programmes.

Community Energy England was involved in two Action Planning sessions that were held in January in Sofia and May in Pescara. The events demonstrated a wide breadth of approaches to deploying community-based renewables across the continent. The different approaches born out of vastly different regulatory regimes demonstrated the innovation and tenacity of communities across Europe who are determined to support local efforts to tackle climate change and create resilient communities.