Future Energy Landscapes toolkit

About the toolkit

Future Energy Landscapes (FEL) is an innovative and practical process for developing renewable energy projects that have meaningful input from communities from the beginning. It has been developed the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE).

This toolkit has been created so community energy groups, local authorities, or anyone interested in developing renewable energy plans or gauging local interest, can replicate the approach. It provides guidance, resources and technical information for you to independently run FEL in your area.

CSE has developed the FEL approach with thanks to valuable contributions and collaboration with: Bath and North East Somerset Council, Bath and West Community Energy, Bristol Energy Cooperative, Empowered, Forest of Dean Climate Action Partnership, Forest of Dean District Council, Forest Community Energy, Low Carbon Gordano, Nadder Community Energy, North Somerset Council, South Gloucestershire Council, Wiltshire Council, and Zero North Wiltshire.

Praxis and the University of Bath have been independent evaluators, informing the development of FEL throughout the project.

The Future Energy Landscapes (FEL) toolkit has been developed thanks to funding from the Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme and the National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund

Using the toolkit

Toolkit guidance

FEL toolkit guidance (PDF).

This provides an overview of the whole process, and what happens at each stage. Our resource packs then provide detailed guidance, resources and technical information to deliver each stage of the process. Please download and read this guidance before accessing the resource packs.

CSE also has a resource for delivering FEL with young people, covering both primary and secondary school education levels, and settings such as youth clubs. Access this on the CSE website here.

Toolkit resource packs

Our guidance and resource packs cover these two parts of FEL: the core FEL process and the additional FEL-plus process.

1. Core FEL process

The core FEL process has three stages. If you are aiming to start exploring renewable energy and community benefit in the local area, this core process enables you to do this. At the end you’ll have a clear understanding of how people value their local landscape, what people think about renewable energy, locations people might support a project, and how they might want to benefit as a community from a development. It is likely that you will create a range of ideas that could be investigated further in FEL+. This covers stages one to three outlined here.

Download our FEL: core process resource pack here. Opens as a ZIP folder.

Stage 1: FEL workshop

The first community workshop takes place. It explores renewable energy options including wind turbines and solar farms and where there is technical potential to build them. There is a discussion about the local landscape, which locations people might support for renewable energy, and possible benefits from community ownership.

Stage 2: FEL survey and community conversations

Wider community conversations take place to find out what other people think. Examples of where these conversations happen include drop-in events, village fetes, library stalls, or street pop-ups. A survey is also distributed so everyone can have their say.

Stage 3: FEL report

A public report is made available and summarises the FEL workshop outputs, discussions from wider community conversations, and the survey results.

2. Additional FEL-plus process

The FEL-plus process follows on from the first three stages of FEL. If you are aiming to develop a shortlist of locations where people support renewable energy, FEL-plus helps you have conversations to narrow down to this point. It brings more detailed technical evidence to help people understand what is feasible in locations where they support renewables. There is also time and space to explain and explore community ownership models in more depth. This covers stages four to eight outlined here.

Download our FEL-plus: additional process resource pack here. Opens as a ZIP folder.

Stage 4: FEL-plus workshop

The second community workshop is held. This uses more detailed technical information to help people shortlist locations identified in the core FEL process where they feel most supportive of having renewable energy. It also explores examples of community ownership in more depth.

Stage 5: FEL-plus survey and community conversations

A second survey invites people to choose the locations they feel most supportive of renewables and asks more about their thoughts on community ownership. Other community conversations in places like drop-in events, village fetes, library stalls and street pop-ups give more people an opportunity to comment on favoured locations.

Stage 6: Pre-feasibility study

This part does further feasibility work on the initial locations supported, but is not a full feasibility study (e.g. what you might produce later, through Great British Energy Community Fund Stage 1 funding). At this stage you might look at high-level issues like site access, land type, grid connection, land ownership and wind speed. These help understand any barriers to development and whether a location is practical, developable, and worth pursuing funding for.

Stage 7: Choosing Your Energy Future

A third community workshop brings together the results from FEL-plus community engagement (stages four and five) with the detailed technical information on shortlisted locations in stage six. There is a discussion and decision about interest in taking a community-led renewable energy project forward and agreement on next steps such as establishing a working group and identifying future funding.

Stage 8: FEL-plus report

A report is published summarising the findings from all FEL and FEL-plus engagement in the local area.

This toolkit is intended as guidance and is based on the Centre for Sustainable Energy’s experience of developing and delivering the FEL approach. While it contains practical guidance, ideas and resources from our work, it should not be considered a definitive or exhaustive guide.

Every community and place is different, so users should adapt the approach to suit their own local context. Those using the toolkit are responsible for how it is applied in their area and for ensuring that any decisions or actions taken are appropriate for their specific context.

If you have any questions about the toolkit, please email communities@cse.org.uk or call 0117 363 4248.