A new project managed by Professor Bronwen Morgan and Dr Morag McDermont of the UoB Law School and funded through the University’s Enterprise and Impact Development Fund is working with local energy groups in Bristol to explore how they can ‘Maintain Momentum’ following activity supported by seed grants. An early outcome of the project, produced with the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE), is an assessment of the potential roles of community groups in supporting the Government’s new ‘Green Deal’ for energy efficiency.

The initial findings were shared with community groups and individuals at the Bristol Community Energy Forum held at the Big Top @

Creative Common on 15th September where project researchers Caroline Bird and Anna King ran a workshop on the roles of community groups in the Green Deal and its alternatives. The workshop allowed participants to explore together what roles their groups might want to take on within the Green Deal structure and the legal implications and other considerations of these possible roles. Queries raised during the session will inform the next stages of the project.

The project builds on the success of Bristol’s local energy groups in securing funding from the Government’s ‘Local Energy Assessment Fund’ at the start of 2012 and will explore the role of brokers or intermediaries such as the Centre for Sustainable Energy and the Bristol Energy Network in helping community activity. This is particularly pertinent with the launch of the Green Deal which aims to support home energy efficiency measures through financing mechanisms which fund improvements through reductions in energy bills. This new Government initiative establishes a number of specific roles and structures within which energy efficiency improvements are financed and carried out.