Teesside councils plan renewable energy schemes

Aug 18 2010 by Kelley Price, Evening Gazette

Paul Hurwood, climate change officer at Hartlepool Council, added: “This bigger financial incentive gives us an opportunity to look at generating energy on-site. We get a payment for generating under FITs, now there’s even more reason. It’s very good news.”

Welcoming the repeal announcement last week, Stockton Council’s cabinet member for the environment, Jennie Beaumont, said: “This is a change we have been pressing for. It’s very good news indeed. We would like to investigate the use of wind power and solar electric panels.”

Middlesbrough Council’s director of environment, Mike Robinson, said a co-ordinated approach on regional initiatives was the best approach.

“I hope to work closely with colleagues in the Tees Valley,” he said, “a coordinated approach will achieve the best outcomes.”

Just 0.01% of electricity in England is currently generated by local authority-owned renewables, despite the scope that exists to install projects on their land and buildings. In Germany the equivalent figure is 100 times higher.

Mr Huhne said Whitehall’s “dogmatic reliance on ‘big’ energy” has stood in the way of the vast potential role of local authorities in the UK’s green energy revolution.

“This is a vital step to making community renewable projects commercially viable, to bring in long-term income to benefit local areas, and to secure local acceptance for low carbon energy projects,” he said.

The repeal ends a 1989 amendment to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, put in place at the time of electricity privatisation to ensure the transfer of the electricity industry to the private sector. But councils argued it no longer made sense, given the need to shift the UK’s power sector to low carbon, and the potential contribution that small scale renewables can make.