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22 April 2024
This year under the Green Steve’s programme we are going to focus on two key areas, the first of which is solar energy. The intention is to focus on solar PV projects and take a deeper dive into the issues involved and how to steer a successful project through delivery. As the energy crisis last year bit deeper, many more local authorities looked at the potential for solar and these papers are intended to assist them in formulating plans and driving them forwards.
The first paper in the series looked at Government policy and its importance in retaining the UK’s leadership role as well as giving the markets confidence to invest in the green agenda. There is no doubt about the importance of this: the private sector will only invest in green technologies if they believe that the Government is committed to the cause and is not likely to make sudden U turns. However, this paper looks at the other end of policy and strategy i.e. at the local level. This is where real life projects are forged and brought into delivery.
Despite its importance, many local authorities undertaking renewable energy work do not have any strategy in place for energy, only a more vague and over arching climate change strategy. This is not considered best practice and this note looks at why it is important to have a firm base for any project that forms part of or underpins the Council’s published strategies.
This is because, local government works on the basis of policy and strategy, with the position on all key functional areas being set down in writing. The purpose of any strategy is to set out the position of the Council on that area and to detail its plan of action. For climate change, such a strategy needs to cover a wide range of issues.
It is not always appreciated how important a climate change strategy actually is. This is in fact a crucial document, because without it, any Council’s claims to be a ‘green’ authority are fairly worthless. The strength of the strategy will largely determine how much credence any green agenda claims by the authority really have. In other words, if the delivery plans are vague, not properly resourced and have no clear timelines and metrics associated with them, the Council’s statements can be easily dismissed. On the other hand, if there are clear targets, a route map showing how to get there and projects to form the steps along the way, this will demonstrate that the Council is serious about ‘walking the walk’ rather than just ‘talking the talk.’
The strategy also has a deeper importance in relation to climate change work. This is because it is the foundation of all actions to be taken by the Council and ties into the legal powers for acting, supports the planning process and dictates how a local authority goes about a project.
A good climate change strategy therefore has to have a number of key ingredients: a vision, clear commitment to that vision, targets, resources available, time to address the issues, preferably a political consensus behind the plans and data on performance against those targets. Many documents fall short of these requirements and come over as lack lustre and devoid of ambitions and commitment.
The political consensus point is also vital to address. Climate change is not a matter of right wing or left wing politics – it is about survival and the need to take urgent action backed by a clear evidence base and scientific advice. Aside from former US President Donald Trump, most politicians understand this and this is demonstrated by the consensus formed in all of the leading UK local authorities who have achieved the best progress in renewable energy.
Taking a simple view, there are three key elements to any strategy:
Obvious targets might include emissions reductions, percentage of renewable energy generated, biodiversity gains and so on. Many local authorities main target is to reach a position of Net Zero by 2030, whether for their own functions and estate or even the wider area. Some have made this even more sophisticated, by including breakdowns of Scope 1,2 or 3 emissions and so on.
However, for the purposes of this note we are looking at the position on energy. This means that one of the sub strategies that will underpin the all-encompassing climate change strategy must focus on energy. It does not matter what this is called – it could be an energy strategy, a renewable energy strategy, a carbon management plan or indeed provisions could be included elsewhere, such as in an action plan.
For these purposes, it is assumed that the Council seeks to develop a renewable energy strategy. To start with, this might only cover solar PV but many authorities do have involvement in hydropower or some, like Bristol City Council, have also gone into wind energy or anaerobic digestion.
This should be a ten-year plan, as it takes time to develop projects of this nature. An obvious strategy is to include ‘quick wins’ i.e. projects that can be delivered in 1-2 years; then more extensive projects in the middle phase; leaving the most difficult areas for later in the programme (when a track record has been established and confidence in the authority’s ability to develop schemes has increased). It goes without saying that it is never good advice to start with the ‘most difficult box.’
Giving some examples of how this might be achieved, the plan might start with solar PV on the Council’s own operational buildings. A good business case can be secured for such projects if the electricity is to be used in the premises where it is fitted. A good market of experienced contractors is available and projects do not take too long to arrange and complete. Obviously, if funding (such as the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme) can be accessed, all the better. This type of work might occupy the first few years of the plans.
The middle section might be occupied by a larger contract for a solarfarm or farms on local authority land. To do this, the council needs to analyse its landholdings and undertake preparatory feasibility work, which can overlap with the work in the first period. A solar farm would normally be expected to take at least 2 years, but this programme may be longer depending on the nature of the site and the level of feasibility required. A former landfill site is a good example of one that would be likely to require more early preparatory work.
The later phases in a renewable energy strategy might well be other technology areas, such as onshore wind (where the Government is under huge pressure to relax the prohibitive planning rules) or heat networks. Here it will take some years just to get to the starting point of a project. For solar PV, perhaps fitting solar to the council’s commercial buildings might be an example, where a different approach is required and electricity is sold via Power Purchase Agreements to commercial tenants in those buildings.
As mentioned on previous page, it is best to avoid having an eclectic mix of projects that don’t really add up to anything. A better course is to focus on key areas, develop expertise and push forwards projects in those areas. This is perhaps one area where Government pots of funding on different areas that come on stream continually are not helping.
In the ten year plan mentioned above, solar PV is the key early player. Starting with buildings (as they are the easiest) a council can gather momentum and have data to show progress. Familiarity with the technology removes the feeling of being out of the comfort zone, which is inevitable to start with.
A solar farm is then a natural progression. If the preliminary feasibility work has been undertaken in tandem with early buildings work, then the council might well be able to progress more quickly to the next step.
It goes without saying that funding and a budget needs to be in place to facilitate this. Generally, finance directors are happy to borrow the money for capital costs for project, but it is the revenue supported costs of the preliminary work that can often be the problem.
It should not be suggested that this means a local authority cannot consider another area of investment or work as the programme progresses, but it is good advice to say it should try to avoid being blown off course by new areas arising, leading to a haphazard or unstructured overall approach and a lack of demonstrable progress in key areas.
There are many benefits of having a robust strategy underpinning the renewable energy work. These include:
Confidence
Experience has shown that local authorities that engage with solar in an organised and planned way quickly gain confidence through early projects. In one case, a council procured solar panels on a large number of council houses, then progressed to fit solar panels to its administrative buildings. Shortly afterwards it built its first solar farm, followed by others. It was simply the case that as the projects developed, officers became more knowledgeable and confident about the technology and therefore more ambitious for greater scale.
It is important to note that this confidence is not just with officers. When the members of a council see a project built and then realise that the business cases were accurate, as the meters go round and the income rolls in, they too become more confident to approve further projects, perhaps at greater scale.
One of the leading local authorities in the UK has gone from having only a couple of officers dealing with renewables internally to a department of over 50 officers in five years in precisely this way.
Funding
Mention has been made of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme as a major source of Government funding for renewable energy. There is lots that could be said about this scheme but there is no doubt that those authorities that have been successful have welcomed the assistance.
The main issue with all Government funding in the current climate is that it is competitive and the money has to be bid for. This takes time, effort and resources and the focus on a key area under a renewable energy strategy will recognise that if such funding is to be approved, these have to be available.
If expertise is being developed and sites appraised, then a local authority will be in a much better position to bid for funds on short notice and under pressure.
Planning
There are various aspects of planning that we will come back to in more detail later in this series. However, the point to be made in this context is that a good renewable energy strategy will support planning applications made in relation to specific projects.
There may be requirements to demonstrate that a range of sites have been considered for a project, or to justify why a site in the Green Belt is needed for this purpose. This is where the strategy comes in: the council can demonstrate in that latter example that it has a climate emergency declaration or climate change strategy in place and that a larger proportion of renewable energy is required and that is the justification for the project.
This can be powerful evidence and there are recent precedents demonstrating that planning inspectors have been satisfied that in the face of rising global warming and the climate crisis good evidence supporting the need for a project outweighs harm to the Green Belt from development that would otherwise be inappropriate.
Communications
Another key area is comms. Many local authorities underestimate the need for a robust comms strategy to underpin their renewable energy work. This has been shown to be a fatal error in some past cases.
Despite the fact that members are democratically elected representatives of the public, who are elected to make decisions on behalf of the populace, we cannot get away from the fact that this is public money in issue and the council has to justify its use of funds – of which it is only the steward – for this purpose. This means that a comprehensive communications strategy needs to be developed. The benefit of this is that this is then the cornerstone to help garner support for all future projects.
Generally, we know the public support action against climate change and renewable energy. For solar PV, the support is the highest of all technologies at over 80% approval (according to the Government’s official tracker). But that does not mean that there will not be turbulence in the press and more widely about some projects.
When introducing a particular project (which is a step along the way in the overall strategy) reference should always be made to the core targets and plan to get there. The strategy becomes an anchor, allowing the council always to show that it is acting as proposed and moving towards the desired goal. This is a powerful antidote to any suggestions – maybe circulating on social media – that the Council does not know what it is doing or has not thought this through carefully enough. A good comms strategy is therefore a vital part of the overall team effort.
Local authorities are good at strategies, planning and resource management. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising that many do not have a strategy to support their work in renewable energy. As mentioned above, climate change aspirations have been set out and plans developed, but there are few detailed strategies about how the authority intends to expand its renewable energy.
A simple target, such as increasing renewable energy in the Council’s functions year on year, or a target of reaching 25% renewable energy by 2030 would be a good start. But this vision must be supported by the right action plan, resources and performance monitoring regime to achieve maximum benefit.
Now is the perfect time to undertake such an exercise if such a strategy has not yet been put in place in your authority and this can then be used as the foundation for a new push to develop more solar energy.
As part of our commitment to helping local authorities innovate in the green space, our infrastructure and energy partner, Steve Gummer has teamed up with Steve Cirell, a Solicitor and Consultant who independently advises local authorities on climate change and renewable energy to produce a series of thought pieces about what local authorities could be doing to further the green agenda. We hope you have enjoyed reading the second in this series and for more please visit our Green Goals web page and follow us on LinkedIn.
For further information, please contact Steve Gummer, on 020 7405 4600.
