Four shortlisted for Birmingham City Council's £1.5bn Green Deal programme

Published by 24publishing for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Communities, Local Government

Four firms, including three energy companies and one contractor, have been shortlisted to be Birmingham City Council’s delivery partner for its Green Deal roll out which begins this autumn.

The council’s Birmingham Energy Savers (BES) programme is its answer to the Government’s Green Deal, which will see households able to borrow cash to pay for upfront energy efficiency work which is then paid back through energy bill savings. The loans will stay with the house not the individual.

BES is borrowing £75m in the first three years of the scheme and is planning to roll-out energy saving measures to 15,000 homes including social homes, private rented and owner occupier properties.

It has targeted an extra £25m through the Government’s Energy Company Obligation (ECO) fund – for fuel poor residents and those homes where the measures will exceed the savings. The scheme is set to be extended to a further 45,000 homes through private finance.

By 2026, BES is hoping some 200,000 homes and buildings across Birmingham and the West Midlands will have benefited from Green Deal retrofits.

Speaking today at Ecobuild, Dave Allport, programme manager for the Birmingham Energy Savers (BES), said the total scheme value will be around £1.5bn.

He said the scheme would target fuel poor residents, those with disabilities and pensioners. He said BES had worked with the public health authority to identify GPs with the highest proportion of patients with cold home-related illnesses.

He said: “We’ve invited four companies to submit detailed schemes and we will be working with them over the next few months so we’re ready to go by autumn 2012."

The three energy companies shortlisted are partnering with contractors, while the other organisation is a contractor.”