‘Pro-savers’: the role of community in energy demand reduction

Community energy provides a space for end-users and interest groups to engage with energy consumption and production at the grassroots level. Often emerging out of community-led renewable energy projects, community initiatives have the capacity to address issues such as rising energy prices, fuel poverty and the desire of independence from incumbent organisations. The publication of the Community Energy Strategy in January 2014 in particular marks the first attempt to institutionalise community energy within the UK energy system. Using localised and tacit knowledge community energy groups can be ideally placed to deal with energy consumption at the point of demand. This capacity is also increasingly being recognised by established political parties in the UK, as shown by opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband’s proposal in September 2014 to give communities the power to insulate homes, while the acting Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Liberal Democrat Ed Davey has indicated that the UK needs to see energy efficiency as part of the nation’s infrastructure programme, and communities have a role to play in that. This paper analyses the role of UK’s community energy initiatives and their members in addressing a variety of energy efficiency and energy generation challenges. We suggest that the emergence of ‘pro-savers’ as opposed to consumers and prosumers is of particular interest.