YouGov polling shows 93% of people support the idea of Energy Sharing Communities
Polling commissioned by E.ON shows overwhelming support for helping public buildings to generate their own solar power and raise funds selling surplus to local communities.
Energy Sharing Communities – where public buildings use rooftop solar to meet their energy needs while selling surplus green electricity to surrounding households – feel to us like an obviously good idea.
They could help schools, hospitals, churches, and libraries enjoy renewable electricity while raising funds and building ties with the community, offer local people lower electricity bills, and allow the whole country to save millions on upgrading national infrastructure while boosting local economies with thousands of new green jobs.
Given that all this can be facilitated with just a simple change of policy and no new major infrastructure, we think it’s worth implementing energy sharing projects in the UK as soon as possible, but we wanted to know if the British people agree. That’s why we commissioned YouGov to carry out a nationally representative survey of 2,000 people asking what they think about energy sharing. The responses speak for themselves.
The British people are ready for Energy Sharing Communities
The first question we asked was a simple one: "Would [it] be a good idea to install solar panels on public buildings such as schools, hospitals, churches, and libraries to help power local communities?” An overwhelming majority said yes, with 93% either strongly or somewhat agreeing, and only 2% saying no.
The results were similarly positive when we asked whether people thought that “Generating and selling electricity from rooftop solar is a good way for public services like schools and hospitals to raise additional funds.” In this case, 85% of people agreed compared to only 4% who didn’t.
These results are encouraging, but they’re not totally unexpected. We know from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Public Attitudes Tracker that 84% of people support renewable energy, and 82% say it’s important that renewable developments directly benefit the local communities in which they’re located. But other questions in our survey reveal that Energy Sharing Communities may also have potential benefits for businesses, and for society as a whole.
57% of people asked said they would be more likely to shop at a supermarket that provides green electricity to the community through rooftop solar. Using separate YouGov research for comparison, this ranks only slightly below “lower prices” as a reason for choosing a supermarket, and above almost every other factor including quality and availability of products, and even brand loyalty.
There are thousands of businesses in the UK with unused roof space on retail outlets, warehouses, and other facilities, and Energy Sharing Communities offer a valuable outreach tool to all of them. Perhaps one of the most surprising and encouraging results from our poll, however, is what people said about how energy sharing might make them feel about their surroundings.
Community cohesion is something we all aspire to, but helping people feel proud and connected in the places they live is a constant challenge. While there are no easy solutions, we were excited to find that an impressive 77% of people said they would “feel more proud of and connected to [their] community knowing that local services like schools, hospitals, churches, and libraries were powering local homes through rooftop solar.”
How we can bring Energy Sharing Communities to the UK
We can bring Energy Sharing Communities to the UK and unlock their enormous economic and social potential with a straightforward regulatory change that has already been tried and tested in Spain, and is now gaining support in Germany and Italy.
By removing network charges and policy costs for the electricity that public building “prosumers” would generate (which will never need to be transported through the higher voltage grid anyway as it flows directly to local households), we can incentivise energy sharing and empower communities around the country. This would make large-scale solar generation not only feasible in the UK, but an invaluable part of the country’s energy portfolio.
Our polling clearly shows that the public supports energy sharing. Now we are ready to support the Government in designing and implementing the necessary changes to make it a reality, and start connecting communities with cheaper, greener power.
To learn more about Energy Sharing Communities, and our successful pilot project in Adeje, Tenerife, take a look at: Energy sharing: How we hope to empower communities across the UK | E.ON News (eon-uk.news)