Local authorities and Sustainable Energy –

Transcript:Local authorities and Sustainable Energy –:
Local authorities and Sustainable Energy – Opportunities, Constraints and ways forward Finance Coin street neighbourhood centre, London 14 September 2018 Mark Bramah, Managing Consultant, Municipia 1. Background The context within which local authorities operate is governed by wider strategic imperatives and by national and local policy e.g. Climate Change and the transition to a low carbon economy. Austerity and the impact on local public services. Industrial Strategy and the Clean Growth Strategy. Devolution agenda – metro mayors. In general terms local authorities are ‘revenue poor’ but have access to ‘cheap’ borrowing and still have a substantial asset base. 2. Opportunities The opportunities for local authorities can broadly be grouped into two main areas: 1. More effective use of assets and resources: • Income generation - Commercial and investment opportunity; • Reducing costs - Energy reduction and efficiency measures; • New capacity – Developing new infrastructure and services; and • Shared resources – skills, knowledge, investment. 2. Economic development and green growth: • Facilitating business growth and investment in the local economy e.g. skills and training; • Regeneration of local areas; • Investment in sustainable housing and transport. 2. Opportunities cont. In this context the role of local authorities can be described as: • Local energy ownership • Re-municipalisation • Devolution • Community ownership • Community engagement and governance 3. Constraints Some of the constraints which impact on the ability of local authorities to exploit the opportunities available are: • Limited economies of scale for local authorities working on their own; • Limited in-house capacity and skills to develop operational activities; • Significant finance needs that may exceed local capacity; • Network constraints – limited grid capacity and the cost of connections; • Policy uncertainty – Brexit and constant changes in central government policy over e.g. FiTs and support for low carbon energy projects restricts the ability to act; • The appetite for risk is low and of necessity democratic governance slows up decision making; • Lack of ‘seed corn’ funding to build effective business cases and to deliver projects 4. Ways Forward In terms of ways forward for local authorities to exploit the undoubted opportunities available through sustainable energy, there has to be a recognition that this is not an ‘optional extra’, a good thing to do to build green credentials and making gestures towards tackling climate change; but part of the fundamental purpose of municipal government in meeting social,