Valuing Community Energy: Social Value Research Launch

As the community energy (CE) sector expands, there is a greater need for CE organisations to demonstrate their impact and the social value that they generate to win contracts, and financial support, from diverse stakeholders, including GB Energy and ultimately Treasury. Despite this, there is still a disconnect between the socially valuable outcomes that the CE sector generates and the means to measure it in a way that is accessible for (often voluntary) CE groups. Led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with Community Energy Pathways and researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Bristol, the Valuing Community Energy (VALCOM) project aims to examine how the CE sector captures the value it creates and understand what it needs to maximise its impact. During this webinar the project team explain the project aims and introduced our sector wide survey which will help us capture data on the needs of CE groups from across the UK. Dr Sean Field (Lead Analyst, DESNZ) outlined how this work fits into the wider aims and objectives of the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero and Great British Energy, how it complements the work undertaken by London Economics in monetising local specific social benefits and wider economic benefits, and how this sits in the context of recent policy announcements, especially the Warm Homes Plan and the Local Power Plan.