You will need technical, legal, financial, operational and other skills during all phases of planning, developing and operating your business. Assessing the available skills in your community is an important part of your community energy planning process. 

You will need to develop action plans to address any gaps in skills. Often consultants or other outside experts can be brought in to fill these gaps in the early stages of your project. Your community should ensure that the knowledge gained from these experts is transferred to the community and that plans are developed to train and create local experts.