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New polling commissioned by Common Wealth shows strong and widespread public support for community-owned energy projects, and a good level of interest in participating in them through volunteering time, investing money, and reducing energy use. The Labour government’s Local Power Plan (LPP) aims to support local authorities and community groups to develop thousands of such projects, contributing to the UK’s pathway to net zero and building community wealth. Along with partner organisations (Power to Change, Locality and Ashden), Common Wealth is undertaking research on how the Local Power Plan (LPP) can be designed and implemented to maximise its effectiveness in enabling a widespread expansion of the sector in a way that works for communities. As part of this, our new polling with YouGov shows:

• 62 per cent of the public would support a community-owned renewable energy project in their area, compared to 40 per cent support for a privately-owned project.
• 53 per cent of the public say they would be likely to reduce their energy consumption in support of a community energy project, with 24 per cent and 14 per cent likely to volunteer their time and invest money respectively.

Lack of funds and lack of time were major reasons raised by those who said they were unlikely to participate, and there are differences in likelihood to participate across age, gender, education levels and social grade.

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