Please submit your 2022 and 2023 data by 6 May.

Login information

The first user from a community energy organisation will need to email sots@communityenergyengland.org and we will grant access.

Once you have access, users can add other people associated with their organisation by inviting them via their email address – click on your organisation, then “Members”, then “+ Invite Members”.

Click here to access the new data portal

We need your help

We ask all community energy organisations to provide their data - every community energy organisation’s data is an important contribution to understanding and quantifying the sector.

We know having access to data on the sector is vital for community energy organisations, stakeholders and policy makers to understand and communicate about the sector, encourage investment and bring about supportive policies, so we are committed to serving the community energy sector by carrying out the annual research.

State of the Sector 2024 is generously sponsored by SP Energy Networks. This support is vital for enabling us to conduct the research.

Next steps

If you are part of a community energy organisation, please proceed to add your organisation’s data to the portal. The window for submissions for 2022 and 2023 will close on 6 May. The portal will remain open for users to view/update data and add new sites throughout the year.

Here are the key things we'd like you to do in the portal:

1. View and edit the organisation's details (click "Edit")
2. View data we already held on your organisation (the submission from 05.01.2024)
3. Add and edit your data in the live survey (click "Add/edit your data")
4. View, edit, and add sites of community energy activity

In the main survey, please make sure you click "Save" at the bottom every time you add/edit more data. You can edit as many times as you like and the data does not disappear after you click Save.

If you are not part of a community energy organisation, please spread the word so everyone in the sector hears about this year's survey and research.

Main survey

We have removed some questions from the survey that were no longer relevant or useful. We have also added some new questions; we know the survey is long, but the sector is getting increasingly varied and complex and we have more and more uses for the data for advocating on behalf of the sector and helping us design support mechanisms for the sector. We ask organisations to provide as much information as possible.

Where it was provided, users can view previous data for their organisation in the portal and download in PDF or CSV spreadsheet - this is shown in the survey response dated 05.01.2024, which is when we uploaded previous data into the new portal.

In the live survey, answers to undated questions, e.g. “how many employees does your organisation have?” are pre-filled with 2021 data so users can view and update. All the questions in the live survey are available to browse so users can gather information from across their organisation.

Sites of community energy

We have also created an area in the portal for sites of community energy. Mostly these will be sites of renewable energy generation, e.g. a hydro facility or a building with solar on the roof, but could also include locations of energy advice cafes and locations from which retrofit services are provided. All site data from previous SOTS and our national map has been pre-loaded into an organisation’s account. When adding or editing a site, users can easily pinpoint the exact location of a site on a map.

Sites are important because our national map with this data proved extremely popular and useful to organisations within and outside the sector, so we want to improve the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the map’s data.

The site data was collated from a range of sources so there is some inaccuracy and duplication - we need your help to make the data as accurate and comprehansive as possible. If any of your sites need to be deleted, please email sots@communityenergyengland.org and we will do this for you.

What will the research outputs be in 2024?

We are currently working with our partners at Community Energy Wales and Community Energy Scotland to plan the research outputs this year, which may include a report, a summary, infographics and other visualisations to help convey sector statistics clearly to a range of audiences. We will start publishing our outputs during Community Energy Fortnight (1-14 July) once we've had time to process and analyse the data provided to us. If you have ideas of SOTS outputs that would help your community energy activity or advocacy, please get in touch with us at sots@communityenergyengland.org.

Thank you to our members and other providers of data for your ongoing support, and to SP Energy Networks for sponsoring State of the Sector 2024.

State of the Sector 2022

The 2022 report focuses on progress made in 2021, describes how and why the sector is changing, highlights its potential, and provides a strong evidence base to encourage policy-makers and other stakeholders to create a more supportive policy landscape for community energy at local, regional and national level.

Thank you to everyone who took part in this important sector-wide project