Perched on a fell above the Lakeland town of Ulverston, just down the road from me, are four wind turbines. They’ve been turning steadily since 1997. The turbines all look the same. But one of the four is very different. It was the first in the UK to be owned by local people, who established a co-operative to buy shares in the turbine. The other three are owned by a commercial renewables developer.

More than a decade on, government has realised that it’s really quite a good idea to let local communities buy into local renewable energy schemes. I’ve » Continue Reading.

Community energy is, I hope, an idea whose time has come. I’ve worked on it for a long time: a scary seven years ago, I published this report, Grid 2.0, which argued that the energy system needed to be reshaped to put people at the centre, rather than placing them as consumers at the end of a long chain that starts from distant power stations.

At the time, we didn’t have much of an audience. But of late, it’s become politically fashionable to call for radical reform of the energy market. There are all sorts of reasons why it » Continue Reading.

I’ve just spent a fascinating couple of days at the Tyndall Centre’s conference on ‘Radical Emissions Reduction’, put together by the redoubtable Kevin Anderson and colleagues.

The idea behind the event was simple: to amass evidence and share ideas on how to achieve a radical cut in carbon emissions, defined as eight per cent reductions per year for the UK. It was resolutely interdisciplinary, with contributions from psychologists, economists, politicians, philosophers, activists and even a firefighter. The range of perspectives was a little bewildering: flitting between light bulb technology and constructivist philosophy induced a peculiar type of brain-ache. But » Continue Reading.

This is a shortened version of my presentation to the Tyndall Centre’s Radical Emissions Reduction conference, December 2013. There’s a video of the full talk here.

Crossword fanatics call it the ‘penny-drop moment’, or PDM: the moment when a series of jumbled clues falls into place, and the whole picture becomes clear. I’ve seen it happen. At the end of a long question-and-answer session between new MPs and a climate scientist, something clicks. The politicians realise that the development of modern societies, economies, and arguably democracy itself, has only been possible because of a stable climate – » Continue Reading.

I really like Twitter. Both for gathering information and opinions, and for engaging people in my work. But it takes a while to get the hang of it. A friend, who’s an eminent academic but is self-confessedly ‘terrified’ of taking the plunge, asked my advice, and this is what I told him. I’d be interested to know what others think: tweet me @bankfieldbecky!

Advice for a twitter newbie:

First, just sign up for an account, follow some people. Trawl through the follower lists of colleagues, friends, people whose opinions you value, and follow who they follow. Try to make it » Continue Reading.

I don’t envy politicians trying to talk to constituents about climate change. It’s undoubtedly one of the most crucial challenges for modern politics. But, when you’re trying to earn a living and get the kids to school, climate change can seem a remote, theoretical thing.

So this summer, when Green Alliance arranged sessions for three MPs to talk community energy with their constituents, it was great to see such enthusiasm and engagement. We talked about how communities could set up renewables projects, how local street-by-street schemes can help overcome fuel poverty, and how all this helps people to understand climate » Continue Reading.

You would never have guessed it from the headlines, but yesterday’s announcement from DECC on community engagement in wind farms could be good news for renewables.

In an effort to placate the anti-wind lobby, government press officers seem to have spun the announcement as a crackdown on wind energy – with some newspapers even reporting that communities would now have a ‘right of veto’ over new developments (this in the Telegraph, for example).

The reality is somewhat different. Government is actually asking developers to begin dialogue with communities earlier, before the planning stage, and to work with local » Continue Reading.

I’ve been talking to the Department for Energy and Climate Change a lot about community ownership of energy. I make the case that there’s lots of potential for community energy at the mid-scale – from 5MW (that’s two or three large wind turbines) upwards.

This always surprises DECC people. They think community energy is small and cuddly. So with the help of lots of community energy types, I’ve compiled a list of community-owned energy projects of significant scale – at or around 5MW.

Two health warnings: first, it’s really not comprehensive. I just asked around. There’s no official stats » Continue Reading.