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to consider the
following motions received (if any) in accordance with Council
Procedure Rules:
a. From Cllr McKay
and Cllr Abbott
‘A
priority for this Council is to address the challenges of climate
change by reducing emissions across the district of South Hams and
to prepare the area for the inevitable consequences of global
warming.
This Council
will set itself goals based on the latest climate science, and in
the interests of its residents and beyond strive to achieve these.
However, it recognises that it will need help from central
government in terms of both funding and legislation.
It is therefore
essential that this Council, in partnership with other Local
Authorities, either directly or through the LGA, vigorously and
persistently lobbies central government for the support that is
desperately needed to effectively address the threats to our
communities as a result of climate change.
Of immediate
importance are the problems community renewable energy projects
face, which can only be dealt with through changes to legislation.
Currently, to become an energy supplier, it is necessary to enter
into highly complex network agreements and grid balancing codes
that make the cost prohibitive.
The Local
Electricity Bill was an attempt to address this by the introduction
of:
a) A Community Electricity
Export Guarantee: which would create a right for sites that
generate low carbon electricity with a capacity below 5 megawatts
to export their electricity to an existing electricity supplier on
fair terms.
b) A Community Electricity
Supplier Services Scheme: which would create a requirement on
existing larger energy suppliers to work with community schemes to
sell the power they generate to local customers. Existing suppliers
could charge a fee for doing this, but that fee must be
reasonable.
The Local
Electricity Bill has now been absorbed into the Energy Bill as
clauses 272 and 273. The Energy Bill is at its Committee stage, and
has still to progress through its Report and 3rd Reading stages
before it becomes law. It is an enormous bill.
The need for
community based local renewable energy schemes is becoming
increasingly urgent if we are to drive down eCO2 emissions, provide
energy security for our residents while also addressing the cost of
energy for residents and businesses alike.
This Council
therefore resolves that:
1. It recognises the
urgent need for community energy generation projects and the need
to create the legislative environment in which they can
succeed.
2. It fully supports
clauses 272 and 273 of the Energy Bill and urges government to
speed the passage of the Energy Bill or, in recognition of the
importance of clauses 272 and 273, to allow the Local Electricity
Bill to proceed separately and at speed.
3. It will write to our
local MPs and the leaders of all the UK political parties
emphasising the importance of community energy projects and the
urgent need to expedite changes to legislation to make them
viable.
4. It will seek to
partner with other Local Authorities both directly and through the
LGA to lobby parliament to achieve the legislative
changes.
5. It will publicise,
through all suitable media channels, the importance of the need for
changes to legislation to allow community energy projects to
succeed.’
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