LATEST NEWS
The LCCC launch event - 08 February 2010
The Low Carbon Communities launch event took place on 8 February 2010.
12 more communities announced under Phase 2 - 04 February 2010
Twelve further communities from across the UK were informed that they could receive up to £500,000 each to help install new green technologies such as solar panels, hydro turbines and energy saving insulation.
The grant money, awarded through the Low Carbon Community Challenge, is planning to be spent on a range of green measures which will cut carbon, save money on energy bills, and could even see some communities make cash from generating their own energy – thanks to the new Clean Energy Cashback scheme.
Winners announced
Communities in Norfolk, Isle of Wight, London, Nottinghamshire, Pembrokeshire, Cheshire, Northumberland, Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and Devon are part of 22 communities to benefit from funding available through the Low Carbon Communities Challenge.
Details of all the projects are available on the winners web page.
Research Councils put out call for research into community energy projects
Proposals are being invited under the Research Councils’ Energy Research Programme for new research which will compliment the Low Carbon Community Challenge. The call is funded by the ESRC and the EPSRC with £6M available. Interdisciplinary applications are being invited for research on energy and communities under the following themes:
- Energy literacy and visibility
- Transformative innovation, lifestyles and sociotechnical practices
- Communities, ownership and social movements
- Policy, governance and legislation
LCCC selected for ‘Listening to the front line’ initiative
The Low Carbon Community Challenge (LCCC) is one of three demonstration areas selected by the Cabinet Office for their ‘Listening to the front line’ initiative – along with work by the Department for Health on obesity and Lewisham Council's work on customer redress. The work aims to reconnect policy making with front line professionals and ensure that those who develop policy do so in close partnership with the people who are responsible for its implementation.
Setting up social enterprises
The 22 winning communities are receiving support to set up as social enterprises, as a result of funding from the Office of the Third Sector's Social Enterprise Action Research programme.
A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.
Social enterprises have multiple benefits: they encourage entrepreneurs who may not otherwise consider starting a business, raise the bar for operating in ethical markets and work on the front line to improve public services and pioneering new approaches and delivering services.
Sciencewise-ERC backs the challenge
Through the Challenge, the experiences of people living and working in communities that take part will be shared publicly, along with the quantitative data on carbon and energy savings. In doing so, we will engage closely with the selected communities so that the data is openly shared and so that the communities have the tools and opportunities to be active participants in the learning. The programme is likely to include the following:
- Hard data on energy use - baseline and historical trends:
Capturing baseline data and historic trends on domestic and non-domestic energy use in buildings in each of the 20 communities. We will source this information using meter point data.
- Real time monitoring of energy use: we are installing Real Time Displays (RTDs) among a statistically robust sample of homes in a selection of participating communities to monitor real time change in energy use in response to the interventions on the ground. As well as supporting the collection of robust measurement data on impacts, this will also enable feedback directly to households and communities on their in home energy use.
- Socio-economic and environmental behaviour data: we will commission a household survey across the successful communities - one before the challenge begins and one at the end - involving a sample of residents in each community to capture information on the wider impacts of the Challenge.
- Public dialogue & co-inquiry: Facilitated events and other supported engagement work with each of the 22 communities to understand the emerging lessons from the Challenge - for the project, the partners as well as for policy making.
We are delighted to announce that The Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre for Public Dialogue In Science and Innovation (ERC), funded by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) will be co-funding the public dialogue and co-inquiry element of this programme. Sciencewise-ERC helps policy makers commission and use public dialogue to inform policy decisions in emerging areas of science and technology. The other three elements of the programme fall within the core research programme for the Challenge.