Support for Rural Community Energy Fundin North East and Yorkshire

Description

The North East and Yorkshire (NEY) Energy Hub is seeking bids to undertake a piece of work that will explore and develop a viable and sustainable model for supporting and building the community energy sector in the North East and Yorkshire area - Appendix 1.

The aims of this work are to:
•	Build on the existing knowledge and evidence base to evaluate the community energy landscape in the NEY area, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to creating a developed and self-sustaining community energy sector with specific reference to the implications for a delivery model. This should enhance, organise and verify rather than duplicate the evidence provided in Community Energy England's State of the Sector report (State of the Sector 2021), Northern Powergrid's Regional Community Energy Study 2020, and other lessons learned to date (see Background below)
•	Identify the most effective, viable and sustainable model for sector building in the NEY area, (in consultation with the Energy Hub and other key stakeholders) and create a delivery blueprint, working with a selection of community energy organisations to set up, pilot, stress-test and tweak the model as needed.
•	Build and deliver a framework of support for Community Energy groups in the NEY area, using a range of methods to enhance groups' knowledge, skills, confidence and access to information in a way that will enable successful and increased delivery of renewables projects in the NEY area. 
•	Handover a final framework to the Hub for ongoing delivery, with recommended activity over a 1,2 and 3 year period, clear recommendations for ongoing resourcing needs and sustainability and clear metrics/targets for ongoing delivery.