Power Generation

Twelve local communities around the UK have been awarded up to £500,000 to install green technologies, while another nine local councils are working with the Government on carbon emission plans.

The £6 million investment as part of the Government’s Low Carbon Community Challenge will help the 12 communities install carbon- and energy-saving technologies like solar panels, insulation and hydro turbines over the next two years.

Hook Norton in Oxfordshire, for example, will install a ground source heat pump for a local school, provide interest-free loans for the retrofit of six homes, insulate a further 40 homes and install solar panels in 20 more.

Meanwhile, Easterside in Middlesbrough will install two wind turbines at a local school and fit 600 homes with energy monitors. A group of 12 villages in South Wales will also install two wind turbines to produce power for around 2000 homes.

Hydro turbines will be installed in Halton in Lancashire and Blaenclydach, a former mining village in Wales.

Other communities to benefit include Ashton Hayes in Cheshire, Exmoor National Park in Somerset and Devon, Whitehill-Bordon in East Hampshire, a community in Cornwall, Ballymena and Glencraig in Northern Ireland and three villages in Pembrokeshire.

Similar awards were made to another ten communities in December last year.

Meanwhile, nine local councils will work with the Government over the next year to trial new local carbon frameworks aimed at tackling climate change through home insulation projects, alternative sources of energy and making the most effective use of surplus energy.

The councils in Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Oxford, Northumberland, the London Borough of Haringey, Nottingham, Plymouth and Bournemouth Poole and Dorset will set targets for reducing carbon emissions and develop a strategy and delivery plan for achieving those cuts.

“Local authorities – through their oversight of housing, planning, waste, transport coupled with the significant spending power they possess – are uniquely positioned to use their role and influence to drive and shape a low carbon economy,” says Communities Secretary John Denham.

For further information:
www.decc.gov.uk/
www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/consumers/lc_communities/lc_communities.aspx
www.communities.gov.uk/corporate/

Related stories:
UK moves ahead with six local renewables projects (10-Dec 2009)
Mayor of London unveils plans for local energy schemes (15-Oct 2009)
UK Government issues low-carbon challenge to local communities (29-Sept 2009)