Energy we can all afford? Public meeting - 16th March 2013

On Saturday, Leicester Friends of the Earth held a public meeting about the Energy Bill as part of the Green Light festival of sustainable living. The theme was 'Energy we can all afford?' and we had a panel of speakers that included Leicester South MP, Jon Ashworth, Tina Holt from the Energy Saving Co-operative, Carl Benfield from Prescient Power and Ben Dodd from Green Fox Community Energy Co-operative. The meeting was chaired by Simon Ward, reporter and presenter with BBC East Midlands Today.

Forty people attended the meeting and there was a lively discussion. The meeting comes as MPs debate the Energy Bill in Parliament to determine how the UK sources its electricity for the next generation. Similar meetings are being held around the country, organised by the 'Energy we can all afford' campaign.

Jon Ashworth stated that the Bill needs to give certainty to investors and create jobs in the green economy by including a target for reducing the amount of carbon produced for each kilowatt of energy generated. Tina Holt told us that the Energy Bill does not even include the word 'efficiency' and the Government needs to join up its policies to promote energy efficiency measures in homes. Carl Benfield explained how complicated the Energy Bill is and how it favours large generators over smaller ones. Ben Dodd stated the Government should be doing more to encourage community ownership as it keeps the benefits in the community and lessens planning objections. He urged Jon Ashworth to encourage the Labour Party to commit to setting a target for community generation.

At the end of the meeting, the members of the panel posed for a photo wearing green hard hats, to show their support for certainty in the Energy Bill that would create green jobs. A full report of the meeting is given below.

Full Report

Jon Ashworth introduced his views first. He explained that the Government is refusing to put a target for decarbonising our energy supply into the Bill and without an explicit target, industry does not have the confidence to invest. The Government has given discouraging signals since they came to power: they have reduced investment in renewable power and changed their mind about the Feed-in Tariffs after they introduced them. He stated that the Energy Bill will not meet our ambitions and the Labour Party have said they would introduce a decarbonisation target, although he was not able to say what that would be at the moment.

Tina Holt began by telling us that the word 'efficiency' does not feature in the Energy Bill and said that energy efficiency has always been the Cinderella of energy policy. The Green Deal is starting to address this neglect but the Government is still giving mixed messages; they encourage solid wall insulation but then block it through the planning process in many areas because it changes the appearance of the house. They need to join up their policies. She also stated that she would like to see legislation to make it impossible to buy energy-hungry devices and to radically reduce energy use.

Carl Benfield explained that he didn't think the Bill should be addressing the cost of energy, which can be governed by policy, but it should address the environmental cost of energy, which we can't afford to ignore. He stated that it has no target and therefore no teeth. The Bill proposes the use of Contracts for Difference, which the Government would issue to buy energy. These are written for big companies, not small generators. Carl illustrated the complexity of the Bill by reading the first paragraph of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act, which was fairly clear, and then the first paragraph of the Energy Bill, which was very difficult to understand! The Bill has multiple aims and therefore doesn't meet any of them properly. He believes we should be democratising energy by taking it away from big business and encouraging localised generation, particularly for heat. Finally, he stated that energy should be taken away from politicians: if the Bank of England manages interest rates, why is energy, which is equally important, managed by politicians?

Ben Dodd began by explaining how community ownership of renewable generation works, whereby members of the public can buy shares to finance the project and then receive an annual return on their investment. This model involves the wider community and keeps the benefits in the local community. The Government has stated that it wants 'a community energy revolution' but Contracts for Difference are very complicated and will be difficult for small generators to negotiate. Smaller generators will also receive lower prices than larger generators. Cornwall Energy to Co-operatives UK recommends that the Energy Bill should include a target for community generation and that a different price mechanism is needed for small community projects. To give us hope, Ben ended by telling us that 23% of energy in Denmark is owned by the community.

Following the initial presentations, Simon took questions from the audience. An audience member asked how we can respond to the massive trade lobbies that fight against wind farms behind the scenes. Ben suggested that when communities come together and fight for a wind farm, they can overcome planning objections. Tina said that sometimes people need to be asked whether they would choose a wind farm, a coal-fired power station or a nuclear plant, to remind them of the alternatives. Carl stated that a powerful argument for wind turbines is that they last 20 years and then can be decommissioned very quickly, so they do not permanently change the landscape. Finally, Jon said that he was in favour of wind turbines and found them aesthetically pleasing.

An audience member pointed out that renewable energy creates more jobs than fossil-fuelled power. Tina responded that the co-operative model of tackling energy efficiency pushes the work back to local people. One of the worries about the Green Deal is that it seems to be a way for energy companies to make money from energy efficiency, whereas she believes that that if people have energy efficient homes, they should save money. Carl re-iterated that to create jobs we need long-term stability and upskilling, with a commitment to the green economy. Jon agreed and pointed out that the low carbon sector grew by 4% last year, when other sectors didn't grow at all, but other countries are doing better. He stated that we need a decarbonisation target to give the industry confidence to create the green jobs, which will be so important for our economy.

Ben told us that the Government used to provide funding to help co-operatives to get started but when the Feed-in Tariffs drop, it will be more difficult for them. They need stability in the market and the incentives. He explained that there is a lot of money available in community energy. Carl said that there is more district heating in Denmark and there is probably a correlation between the amount of district heating and the amount of community-owned energy. To illustrate the difficulties that renewables face, he explained that the Government is supposed to give two months' notice when they are going to reduce the Feed-in Tariffs, which is not long enough anyway, but they then ignore this notice period. He also stated that having bands for renewable heat generation does not make sense as people end up generating more than they need in order to move into a higher band and receive more money; he believes there should be a sliding scale. Tina said that the financial hurdles need to be simpler - energy efficiency is actually one of the cheaper things to do.

In response to a question, Jon stated that the Labour Party still believes that nuclear power has a part to play in our energy generation and that the time has not yet come when we can rely on renewable power. Ben responded that for half an hour on one day last year, Germany was entirely powered by renewable energy; green energy is not an ideal but a reality now. Ben also asked why the Labour Party doesn't commit to setting a target for community generation as this would attract lots of voters!

The final question was whether wind power is economic and Tina responded that wind is expected to be cheaper than gas by 2030.