News

Our plans for the year – and an exciting transition

15 January 2026

This is an exciting year for community energy. With the government’s Local Power Plan aiming to support 1,000 locally owned clean energy projects, there’s a real opportunity for the sector to grow faster and reach more communities across England. Community-led energy keeps benefits local – from lower bills and warmer homes to stronger local economies and communities with more control over their energy future.

Influence

At the heart of our work is policy and advocacy, working to ensure that the policy and regulatory environment supports significant growth of community energy. Early in the year, we’ll be leading the sector’s response to the Local Power Plan, the government’s flagship local energy policy package, which is expected to be published soon. We will guide members on what it means in practice and work closely with government and other stakeholders to ensure that it delivers what the sector needs to scale and thrive. 

Beyond the Local Power Plan, we are expecting several more significant policy developments for community energy, including the publication of the Warm Homes Plan and developments in Regional Energy Strategic Planning, smart local energy systems and local supply. We will also continue to seek resolution to blockers and barriers to the sector including the uncertainty from DfE over solar PPAs. This is a crucial year for local energy policy, which offers real opportunities for community energy. We will strive to ensure our members’ views and experiences are well understood by decision makers and that community energy is recognised as a crucial actor in the energy transformation.

We will also collect data from the sector, as part of  the 2026 UK Community Energy State of the Sector report, with Wales and Scotland, which will build a stronger evidence base to support our policy proposals and capacity building efforts. By combining robust data with sector insight, we can better show decision-makers the impact of community energy, highlight successes, and identify where support is needed. This year’s data will act as a baseline to measure the effectiveness of the Local Power Plan in supporting and growing the sector over the coming years, so your input in the survey will be more important than ever.

Part of our influence is building awareness, and we’ll continue building momentum for the Up the Energy campaign, reaching new decision-makers through our open letter and demonstrating the breadth of support for community energy across the country in the second phase of the campaign. We urge as many of our members as possible to sign our open letter to the Government, due to be delivered to the Government in a matter of weeks. If your organisation hasn’t signed yet, now is the perfect time.

Engage

Membership remains at the heart of everything we do. Last year we launched our new website in response to members’ requests and now members can add their own events, share offers, post jobs and more. We’d love to see more members making the most of these features, as they’re designed to help everyone connect and share more easily, fostering partnerships locally, regionally and nationally.

CEE has always been about supporting our community members, and they will always be the core of the sector, but this year we’re trying something new. We’re introducing a new corporate membership tier to help more organisations join our network, collaborate with others, and share ideas. The new tier aims to grow our community by expanding who can connect with community energy and improving access to new solutions, demonstrating that CEE is here for all organisations committed to scaling the sector and maximising community impact.

We want to improve how we communicate and make sure we’re providing real value for our members. To help with this, we’ll run our annual member survey so we can keep learning, improving our services, and offering better support. We also want to put more focus on listening to what members really need from CEE and the resources they’d like us to create. By acting on member feedback, we shape what we offer – even if that means changing how we do things. We’ll also review our member-only resources and find better ways to clearly show the value of being a CEE member.

Events are central to building connections, sharing knowledge, and celebrating success. This year, our programme will include:

• A summer conference in June
• Community Energy Fortnight in July
• A winter conference in November
• Our annual awards in early 2027, returning as a standalone celebration

The goal is simple: more members, more engaged members, and a stronger, more sustainable network with access to opportunities for everyone in the sector.

Enable

Supporting members to grow skills, confidence, and capacity remains a core priority. In 2026, we’ll continue delivering our current projects, like the Energy Learning Network, Community Energy Go, and Seeing is Believing (North East and Yorkshire), while piloting new initiatives to meet emerging needs.

We’ll also be building on learning from major initiatives such as the Community Heat Development Unit (CHDU) and Net Zero Terrace Streets (NZTS), helping to share insights on community-led heat, and on the role of targeted retrofit in enabling viable low-carbon heating solutions. 

A 2026 focus will be on key business models that enable the sector to contribute to the delivery of the Clean Power Mission, particularly supporting a revival of onshore wind in England (see our new wind viability tool VoteWind.org), and growing storage and flexibility services alongside rooftop and ground-mounted solar generation. Using insights from your responses to the State of the Sector survey, we’ll identify capacity gaps and target regional interventions where they’re needed most.

To support learning and accelerate development, we’ll expand our online bite-sized event series, along with accessible resources like videos and guides, to provide high-value content for members. Alongside this, we’ll be developing our new website, expanding our online resources – from ‘How To’ guides and case studies to videos and downloadable PDFs – making it easier for everyone to access the information and tools they need.

Leadership transition

Finally, this year will mark an important moment for Community Energy England. After 11 years of leadership as our Chief Executive, Emma Bridge will be stepping down at the end of March, and a new CEO will be joining very soon.

During early 2026, Emma will remain focused on maintaining strategic momentum so that the new CEO can hit the ground running, inheriting a strong and sustainable organisation that is best placed to serve the community energy sector into the future. 

Looking ahead

We’re genuinely excited about 2026 – for our organisation, our members, and the wider sector. Together, we will turn policy ambition into real projects, real benefits, and real change for communities across England.

We can’t wait to share more with you as the year unfolds – and we’d love to hear from you too. We’d love for you to share your own hopes and plans for 2026 and see what others in the community are looking forward to.