.jpg)
While the Local Power Plan, unveiled earlier this week, committed to the biggest investment in community energy in British history, there may be some frustration at the lack of specifics. Drawing on our work in this space and our 'In Conversation With' event with GB Energy's CEO Dan McGrail this week, Grace Millman unpacks what we do and don't know about what's coming next.
DESNZ and Great British Energy's much-anticipated Local Power Plan confirms 'up to' £1 billion of funding for community and local energy projects over the next four years – the biggest investment in community energy in British history.
It's been a long wait, and the plan is short on detail, but it sketches out a strong vision and does give more clarity on the role of GB Energy.
"This is about working hand in hand with community groups, local authorities and the devolved governments right across the UK to realise a bottom-up vision not just of publicly owned power, but of power owned and controlled by communities themselves."
The Local Power Plan begins with a strong foreword from the Secretary of State, signalling a fundamental shift in the government's vision for the energy system – one where power is owned and controlled by communities, generating income for decades and delivering transformational investment to build the wealth of local areas.
However, today's UK energy policy, markets and regulation generally do not recognise the benefits of smaller and local energy. Broadly speaking, our system is designed to incentivise big generation and national supply – it is built for projects and services which can achieve economies of scale, not wider benefits. As a result, smaller local projects face challenges navigating and competing in markets and technical processes (e.g. grid connections) that have historically been designed for bigger players.
To fundamentally change the energy system to recognise, encourage and reward locally produced energy, GB Energy and DESNZ need to commit to making some big changes.
The plan acknowledges the challenging policy environment that community energy groups have been operating in and applauds the grit and determination of the sector to develop projects that are delivering benefits to local places, despite these challenges.
There is no mention of the 8 GW commitment from GB Energy's founding statement. Instead, the plan sets out four offerings that aim to overcome the barriers facing local and community energy and support over 1,000 projects by 2030. At our In Conversation With event this week, GB Energy CEO Dan McGrail argued that the capacity target ran the risk of incentivising the wrong sort of investment from GB Energy, focused purely on quick wins and low-hanging fruit, rather than trying to genuinely progress and scale the sector.
The plan also makes explicit reference to bringing new communities into the sector, with a vision for every community in the UK to have the opportunity to own a local energy project by 2030. From the in-person discussion, this is clearly a key motivation for Dan, ensuring marginalised and less affluent communities can also own, lead and benefit from their own clean power projects. To understand more about how community energy can support a just transition, you can read our insight piece here.
While the plan is bold in its vision, it lacks details of the products and policies that GB Energy will lean on. Drawing on our work supporting the community and local energy sector, we set out what we would like to see next from GB Energy in four key areas covered in the Local Power Plan...
Shared ownership, where communities invest alongside developers in clean energy projects, offers a powerful mechanism for a faster and fairer rollout of clean power projects. The Local Power Plan has a specific emphasis on shared ownership as an "easy first step" for communities new to energy generation, giving local communities a say in larger-scale energy projects and unlocking greater financial returns. DESNZ has committed to consulting on mandatory shared ownership offers in 2026, following on from its Working Paper in 2025. (You can read our response to that here.)
Regen's paper, Sharing Power: unlocking shared ownership for a fast and fair transition, funded by the William Grant Foundation, provides a comprehensive framework for how shared ownership can support a just energy transition. We are pleased to see GB Energy progressing our recommendation to develop standardised processes, contracts and guidance for shared ownership (expected to be published in 2026). This focus on simplification and standardisation is intended to help overcome some of the barriers faced by communities in approaching new projects.
GB Energy now needs to:
'Capacity' refers to the collective ability of a community to create, lead and take advantage of opportunities from decarbonisation and clean energy. This includes the people, organisations, skills, expertise, financial resources and procedural support to make projects happen in practice. Understanding and building capacity among communities will be crucial to unlocking local and community energy at scale.
The Local Power Plan focuses on developing standardised templates and guidance documents via its 'Community Energy in a Box' toolkit, and providing access to commercial, financial and technical expertise. This will be essential for capacity building, especially for underserved communities and new entrants to the sector.
The Local Plan has opened up an Expression of Interest process for communities; however, this will likely be taken up by groups already involved in community energy projects, and more targeted engagement campaigns and outreach will be needed to fully enable all communities to benefit from GB Energy's support.
Tomorrow, Regen is launching 'Building Blocks: Developing community capacity for a just transition', funded by the William Grant Foundation, which unpacks the issue of capacity for lower-income and marginalised communities.
To unlock community capacity in more places, GB Energy should:
The Local Power Plan recognises that the current grid connection process unfairly favours larger commercial projects over local and community projects. The problem is particularly acute in Scotland, where even smaller-scale projects (anything over 200 kW on the mainland) must undergo a Transmission Impact Assessment before it can connect to the distribution network.
The government has committed to "convening new working groups with Ofgem and DNOs to explore tailored support for community energy projects looking to secure grid connections" and to "taking action to address the additional barriers presented by the lower Transmission Impact Assessment thresholds in Scotland to better support community energy".
While the focus is welcome, more direct action is needed. Dan made it clear that GB Energy must remain in its lane as a market actor and have no more influence over policy than any other developer in the industry. However, he highlighted the power of the sector, which now includes a publicly owned company, speaking with a common voice.
In our grid briefing paper with Community Energy Scotland, we set out three changes that can be implemented to unlock the grid for Scottish community energy projects. We will continue to push for these with government.
Partnerships between local authorities and community energy organisations work by combining resources to pursue common goals and maximise local benefits. These strategic collaborations benefit both parties – community energy groups bring grassroots knowledge and engagement, while local authorities provide much-needed capacity and resource, plus insights into planning systems.
As part of Innovate UK's Net Zero Living Programme, Regen published Power of Places: A vision for local energy in the UK. Thriving partnerships between local authorities, community energy groups and renewable developers are an essential part of this, but these organisations often differ in terms of organisational culture, risk appetite, skills and experience.
The Local Power Plan has announced a Partnerships Fund for joint projects between local government and community energy organisations. DESNZ has also committed to engage across the public sector on opportunities to unlock power purchase agreements (PPAs) between community energy groups and public properties, building on the decision made in the November 2025 Budget to enable public-private partnerships for decarbonisation.
GB Energy could go further by providing facilitated support and guidance that clarifies how best to collaborate, procure services and involve this more diverse mix of organisations, including standardised frameworks for establishing ownership and governance arrangements. This should also include suppliers where feasible, ensuring that local renewables and place-based initiatives can subsequently engage people on their bills.
The Local Power Plan is a landmark document, and it speaks to some of the key challenges facing the UK today – energy bills, jobs and skills, identity, community cohesion and local investment. Enabling democratic ownership of energy at scale puts power firmly into the hands of people and communities across the country.
Now that the plan is out, GB Energy will need to take up its newly defined role in the energy sector, as a convener, investor, developer and enabler. Being all of these things to all of its potential customers will be challenging. Key to its success (and that of the government's vision) will be how well it can work with, and work to expand, the sector around it.
Regen is working with GB Energy to develop its products and services and will continue to advocate for communities to take a greater stake in the energy transition.
Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter containing industry insights, our latest research and upcoming events.
