£24 awarded 13 councils for clean energy projects

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has awarded funding to help develop clean and efficient heating systems to 13 local authorities across England.

The £24 million has been spread across projects from Sheffield to Somers Town, which will help warm homes and businesses with low carbon energy.

This awarded funding is the first from a £320 million pot earmarked to support heat networks, which have been dubbed ‘central heating for cities’ and have the potential to reduce heating costs in some cases by more than 30 per cent.

The networks remove the need for individual properties to have their own boilers by linking them to a single heat source.

Nine of the winning authorities will receive a share of just over £24 million of capital funding to support the building of their projects, with around £200K in early stage funding for a further four authorities to develop their plans.

According to a statement from BEIS, winning entries at the building stage include four projects in London, two in Manchester and one each in Sheffield, Crawley and Colchester. Support was won at the planning stage by projects in Trafford, Islington, Buckinghamshire and Middlesbrough.

Climate Change and Industry Minister Nick Hurd said: “This government is committed to ensuring a clean, secure and affordable energy supply for communities and businesses across the country.

“Energy innovations like heat networks can cut costs for households and reduce carbon emissions, as almost half of the energy we use goes towards heating our homes and buildings.

The scheme is expected to run over five years and is expected to enable up to 200 heat networks to be built, while leveraging around £2 billion of wider public and private investment.