Businesses in Scotland are to receive a new tranche of energy efficiency funding from the nation’s government as Holyrood’s adoption of energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority ramps up.
Around £9 million has been awarded across 11 local authority areas under Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Programme (SEEP) Pathfinder Fund and will be used to pay for a wide range of measures across private and council-owned commercial buildings.
This will include energy saving measures in social housing; various insulation solutions in commercial buildings across the country; energy management system improvements; LED lighting upgrades in three NHS buildings in South Lanarkshire; and a trial of solar PV as a supplement to district heating at a care home in Shetland.
The total project funding announced by the Scottish government adds up to just over £8.2 million, with a further £900,000 of loan funding to be made available to councils for other projects.
Paul Wheelhouse, minister for business, innovation and energy, said: “By taking a coordinated approach to improving buildings across the commercial, public and industrial sectors we are not only boosting the economy but will be able to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which will help us meet our ambitious climate change targets.
“This is part of our overall investment of over £1 billion by 2021 in energy efficiency which aims to make homes and buildings warmer, improve health outcomes and create a supply chain across all of Scotland which will support around 4,000 jobs a year once the programme is fully operational.”
The Pathfinder pilot schemes are intended to help shape the wider work that will be delivered when SEEP is rolled out further from 2018 onwards. The funding is delivered directly to businesses through their local authorities and while open to residential projects as well as commercial, both are given equal weighting.
A spokesperson for the Scottish government told Clean Energy News earlier this year when the funding was announced that “both businesses and domestic are eligible on the same basis.”
Scotland’s approach to energy efficiency is considered by many to far outstrip that of the Westminster government. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recently concluded in a report that energy efficiency in Scotland has performed better than England thanks to the nation’s “well developed” policy.
Where the UK government offers only the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme to compel suppliers to improve the homes of their customers, the Scottish government makes available significant sums of direct funding to homes and businesses.
In addition, it has already enforced new mandatory energy efficiency regulations on commercial buildings while similar rules do not apply in the UK until 2018.
