Community energy: A practical guide to reclaiming power

As you may begin to realise, building a community energy project takes time. It is not a quick campaign that you can win overnight, as it’s always the case when you are creating deep and lasting change for your community and the energy system. This means that your group will need to be strong to continue working together.

In the previous chapter, we shared tips to deal with problems when they arise: it’s good to be prepared and accept that at times, there will be problems. However even in a seemingly healthy group, it’s good to nurture the team spirit and make sure you are actively doing things to keep people engaged and inspired, and to bring new people into your core team.

If you join an existing community energy group (which is almost always more effective than starting your own project from scratch), spend a few months observing how things work and what kind of culture already exists. Notice who is happy and who might be in danger of leaving for whatever reason. You can then start to make suggestions and work with people who nurture the team.

You can look into tips from groups which practice community organising, who have a long history of working to build power in their community. You can find resources on this topic on the Leading Change Network’s website, or check out the work of Margeret Lewith or Saul Alinksy.

One of the most important things is that people stay inspired and remember why they are doing this work together. As Ursula from the OurPower cooperative says in the success story in the next chapter: “The most inspiring thing is to create change. You can’t do it alone, but if you have a trusting, focused, team of people who know each other well, you can change the energy system together.”

A core team of leaders 

It is useful to think of your core team of people as a group of leaders working together. Try to ensure that responsibility to reaching out to different parts of your community is shared among the team. For example one person might have good contacts to farmers, or even better be a leader among the local farming community. One person might be an active parent in the local school and be respected as a leader in that part of the community.

When we talk about leadership, we mean the kind of leadership that is about facilitating and empowering others, as opposed to leaders who behave like divas or whose motivation is power and authority over others. In our vision, leadership rhymes with responsibility, the people who make sure things happen, who care that new people join the group. Leadership is the foundation of good organising. Develop your own, and support the leadership of others.