Commentary on Sections Community electricity right
204.In January 2014, the Government published its Community Energy Strategy, which identified community shared ownership in renewable energy as a means to ensure that individuals living close to renewable energy installations are able to have a greater share in the financial benefits. A Shared Ownership Taskforce has been set up to ‘facilitate a substantial increase in the shared ownership of new, commercial onshore renewables developments’ such that ‘by 2015 it should be the norm for communities to be offered the opportunity of some level of ownership by commercial developers’. The community electricity right is an alternative to the voluntary approach to increasing shared ownership, if this approach fails to deliver.
205.The community electricity right confers a power on the Secretary of State to make regulations giving individuals and/or community groups the right to purchase a stake in a renewable electricity generation facility in their local area (including onshore and offshore facilities). In connection with this power the Secretary of State can make regulations about the ownership of qualifying facilities, the supply of information and the enforcement regime.
206.The power allows the Secretary of State to provide for various matters in the regulations, including the kinds of facilities to which the right will apply, the members of the community who will be eligible to exercise the right to buy and the kinds of stake that may be bought through the right to buy.