The ‘Maintaining Momentum in Bristol Community Energy’ project was a community action research project that used an online survey, analysis of project reports, and a participatory mapping workshop with 30 representatives of local community energy groups to examine how community energy initiatives could maintain momentum after receiving Government Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF) grants and how expert intermediary organisations could help them. The project was run in Bristol in 2012-13 and led by researchers from Bristol and Sussex Universities, the Bristol Energy Network (BEN) and the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) with funding from the Bristol University ‘Enterprise and Impact Development Fund’. The project contributed to the development of the ‘Bristol Community Strategy for Energy’ and called for an expansion of typical definitions of community energy to support learning and experimentation, to more fully recognise the roles played by intermediary groups, and to see community action as a way of increasing societal engagement in energy system change.