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<p>On 27 January 2014, the Department of Energy and Climate Change published its Community Energy Strategy, available at:</p><p>https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-energy-strategy</p><p>The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), wrote to Fergus Ewing MSP, Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism, on 13 January 2014, ahead of the publication of the Community Energy Strategy. Many areas of energy and climate change policy are devolved in Scotland, but some sections of the strategy are of particular importance there, including electricity generation, some aspects of energy efficiency, roll-out of smart meters and smart grids.</p><p>Key announcements in the strategy which apply to Scotland are as follows:</p><p>A UK-wide competition to encourage innovative community approaches to saving money or energy.</p><p>A taskforce from the renewables industry which will work with the community energy sector and report to the Secretary of State with a robust framework and timetable for implementing a substantial increase in the shared ownership of renewables developments in the UK.</p><p>A working group on grid connections to examine existing processes, identifying the difficulties that they pose to community groups and proposing workable solutions to the Secretary of State. Policy on grid connections is Great Britain-wide, and will include representatives from distribution network operators across the whole of Great Britain as well as a representative of Community Energy Scotland.</p> |