January 2013: Responding to a competition launched last October, DECC have just announced that 132 projects have won a share of £46 million of funding. The three strands of the funds were “to help reduce fuel poverty, boost energy efficiency, and encourage collective switching and purchasing in regions across Great Britain.” The full press release is here and boroughs successful (and amounts awarded) can be downloaded here, and shows London did well with a total of £11m worth of projects selected. These were:
Fuel Poverty
- Barnet (£107,500)
- Waltham Forest (£97,000)
- Tower Hamlets (£2,254,000)
- Camden (£407,500)
- Brent (£102,000)
- Hillingdon (£106,500)
- Hounslow (£706,000)
- GLA together with 18 London boroughs (£5,360,421)
Green Deal Pioneer Places
- Brent (£153,000)
- Camden (£120,180)
- Hounslow (£262,000)
- Haringey (£275,200)
- GLA together with 18 London boroughts (£266,921)
Cheaper Energy Together Funding
- Tower Hamlets (£37,351)
- Kingston upon Thames with 16 London boroughs (£686,655)
Little information is available at the moment on what exactly these various schemes will do in their respective areas, however, some guidance released when the competition was launched provides details of what this funding is supposed to be delivering.
London Councils reports that the last of the collective energy purchasing schemes, where Kingston Council is the lead borough, will help “Vulnerable residents in up to 1.75 million homes across London will be offered assistance by their local council to get a better energy deal and save money.” DECC’s Secretary of State, Ed Davey, is hugely supportive of such collective purchasing deals (see here and here), and promoted such programmes in his former role at the Department of Business (BIS). He’s also the MP for Kingston and Surbiton, so it’s not surprising that his local council undertook a strong role in this competition.