Image: Nottingham City Council.
The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) is calling for the introduction of a floor price above zero for the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) to help support community energy.
This follows industry feedback gathered through a call for evidence regarding community energy issued by the EAC in February that saw 57 responses. Industry representatives told the committee that in its current form, the SEG – which came into effect in January 2020 and requires energy suppliers to offer an export tariff – is "flawed because it provides no minimum export price, and no long-term certainty beyond 12-month periods".
As a result, the EAC is also recommending that the government extends the guarantee on the energy export price. These recommendations have been issued in a letter addressed to energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, detailing how while the SEG has replaced the feed-in tariff (FiT), it puts the community energy sector at a disadvantage to larger renewable energy projects which receive long-term certainty from Contracts for Difference.