Birmingham’s Industry Will Be Revived With A £760m Green Energy Scheme

By Cynthia Taylor

Birmingham City Council says that the £760m green energy scheme investment could kick start a new epoch in Birmingham’s future manufacturing history.

This green energy savings programme will mean that 114,000 homes, commercial properties and public buildings in this city will be retrofitted with solar panels, as well as other energy saving measures; this will be implemented over the next 15 years.

This is a very ambitious measure that Birmingham City Council is undertaking to reduce its carbon footprint of about 60% by 2026.

The city council will initially buy and install a number of solar panels on several properties; the council will then use the cash that is generated by the Feed-in-Tariff scheme and the Green Deal scheme which will in turn finance further loans to invest in more properties.

The government’s Green Deal initiative will also allow householders to be able to take out government backed loans of as much as £10,000 in order to improve their energy efficiency.

Areas of concerns are that a lot of the £760m investment could end up in the pockets of China, who produces the bulk of solar panels, or Germany and Scandinavia, who manufacture wind turbines.

Birmingham Council is looking for businesses that can develop green manufacturing in the West Midlands area.

If this is successful, then it’s estimated that 55,000 jobs could be created by this initiative. Areas that are envisaged are engineers, designers and manufacturers, two organisations that are already on board is Birmingham City University and Aston University who are both ‘cutting edge’ in regards to research and the development of green technology.

Paul Tilsley, council’s deputy leader (Lib Dem Sheldon) has said that there are huge economic gains as a result of this initiative and that the green benefits are obvious.

He continued that Birmingham’s budget for public expenditure on the city is £7.6 billion, out of the £1 bn is used to pay people not to work, therefore they will also benefit by the creation of jobs.

He further said that it’s a sad fact that you have to go to China for solar panels and Denmark or Germany for wind turbines, while Birmingham is 200 yards from where Joseph Lucas had developed the gas turbines a century ago. He felt that the UK should be producing these products here.

Councilor Tilsley said that Birmingham City spends approximately £1.7 billion annually on energy alone and that they can save at least 25% (£425 million) that can be reinvested in economy locally.

David Allport, Council Official, who is to develop the scheme, has told delegates that this investment will begin small, initially with £36m that has been borrowed to install panels into 2,000 homes, and 200 public buildings.

The money that will be generated from this first investment and the electricity that will be sold to the National Grid will pay for the increasing levels of the investment.

Private homes, council and housing association properties will eventually be included in this scheme.

Various local authorities have signed up these include Local Enterprise Partners of Birmingham, Worcestershire and Staffordshire, the Black Country Authorities and Solihull.

The council received praise from David Adams, a retrofit specialist at Willmott Dixon. He said that Birmingham had solved a large question of where the money was to come from to this going - public sector borrowing as he put it.

But he has cautioned against the bolder predictions of relying on the Feed-in-Tariff and pointed out that it will be replaced by the Green Deal when it is finalized.