Repowering communities: Small-scale solutions to large-scale energy problems Energy policy is at a crossroads

Attempts to meet targets for carbon emissions, energy security and affordable energy for vulnerable households are all on a trajectory to failure. Aggressive ambitions to roll out huge off-shore wind, nuclear and clean coal plants are proposed, but without any clear plans on how funds will be mobilized, or transmission and distribution infrastructure developed.

In this book Vaze and Tindale ask politicians and regulators to consider a different path. Using abundant examples of small scale local solutions Repowering Communities examines how cities, communities and local authorities from across Europe and North America have driven reductions in energy use and rolled out small scale, community level solutions.

Among the issues examined are the drivers behind behavioural change, the methods used to secure necessary investment and what government and civil society can do to foster such action on a wide scale. Based on extensive first-hand research and drawing on the latest global energy data the authors provide essential information and inspiration for readers who wish to drive the policies that encourage community-level energy development. David Miliband, former UK Foreign Secretary and Environment Secretary, has said: 'the low-carbon agenda is so large that policy matters tend to look only at large-scale solutions. This book is a welcome antidote to that temptation. It is a challenge to all of us'. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has said: 'Prashant Vaze and Stephen Tindale’s book offers a unique perspective on the need to adopt innovative energy policies that engage communities and promote localised energy production'.

(Not freely available to download)

• Primary Source