Investment in local energy and sustainable initiatives could help reduce UK energy bills

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published 3 July 2020

A number of businesses and local councils have called for the UK Government to provide more investment in local energy schemes in a bid to initiate a ‘green stimulus’ across the country.

Several reports have revealed a study by UK100, Siemens and a ‘network of 100 mayors and local government leaders’ titled the ‘UK100 Local Energy Insight Report’. The report asks for £5bn in funding to create a ‘Net Zero Development Bank’ to support 183 different local green projects currently in development across five UK regions. The group’s reasoning for this being that they believe these projects have the potential to ‘unlock’ another £100bn in future green schemes.

In addition, the group believes that the investment in local energy would ultimately be positive for the country's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Upwards of '300,000 new jobs' could be created if the schemes were developed, which could then work to strengthen Britain’s green energy sector.

It could also see typical household energy bills being reduced, as the generation of renewables would increase and supplies would become more readily available. These reports again show the UK’s growing interest in green energy and highlight how carrying out an online energy comparison and switching to a green energy supplier now can be a wise move – particularly while energy prices remain lower than normal.

An essential move to meet Net Zero by 2050

Other key objectives of the funding would be to help make the UK’s overall energy usage more sustainable, but the group also stressed how the investment would be essential for meeting the Prime Minister’s target of being Net Zero by 2050.

The notion here being that with a stronger green infrastructure in place - which the group believes the local energy investment will help secure – the more confident other investors will be to spend more on similar projects.

Additional calls for the ‘decarbonising’ of Britain’s homes

The group’s recommendations have also come alongside Boris Johnson’s recent announcement on how the UK’s recovery from the coronavirus needs to be quick and ‘green’. However, this has also led to similar calls for funding from the Climate Coalition (CC) for more Government spending to go into ‘decarbonising Britain’s housing stock’ if the Net Zero target is to be reached.

The CC claim that the UK has some of the most inefficient housing stock in Europe, but by retrofitting the country’s homes with insulation and green technologies, significant strides towards nationwide sustainability can be made. Such actions could then also reduce a household’s typical energy consumption and energy bills.

Whether these plans and funding requests are realised is uncertain, but in light of the Prime Minister’s latest announcement and green pledges, the focus on sustainability is sure to remain on the Government’s radar for the foreseeable future.

So as aforementioned, consumers who’ve yet to switch to a greener energy tariff may wish to look into using an energy comparison service as soon as they can. This is because if there is more Government investment in green initiatives like local energy projects and decarbonisation in the coming months and years, greener energy tariffs will become more widely available and less competitive. Whereas acting to switch now could help secure a better green energy deal.

Rich is a freelance copywriter and content strategist with over 10 years' experience. His career has seen him work in-house and in various agencies, producing online and offline content marketing campaigns and copywriting for clients in the energy industry.