A number of energy projects have been successful in receiving a share of the UK government’s £1.3 billion infrastructure investment fund.
Announced yesterday (4 August) by housing secretary Robert Jenrick, the funding will be divided between over 300 different shovel-ready infrastructure projects throughout England.
These include the UK’s first large scale energy EV logistics hub in the South East Midlands, which will receive £1.195 million. The Rockingham Clean Energy Hub will help position the area as an exemplar of “clean, renewable energy management and electric vehicle distribution” the government said.
Also in the area, the Bedford Green Energy Innovation Park is receiving £1.867 million. It is designed to be an example of how the Oxford-Cambridge Arc can generate green, low carbon, clean energy.
In Oxfordshire, the Energy Systems Accelerator Pilot – a co-working space designed to inform the full Energy Systems Accelerator project – received funding, as did the Westmill Energy Organisations, the only combined wind and solar site in the south of England, which received £55,000.
South Yorkshire is using funding for EV charging infrastructure after a study found that around 200 fast chargers and around 30 rapid chargers by 2022 would be needed to keep pace with the growth of EVs. The project will see the number of chargers in the Yorkshire and Humber region as a whole increase by around 12%.
All the projects selected form part of the Getting Building Fund, with the government aiming to spur on economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, creating jobs and supporting regeneration.
They were chosen by the Local Enterprise Partnerships and Mayoral Combined Authorities, with the green energy infrastructure projects chosen alongside those for building 45,000 new homes including £360 million of investment for 26,000 new homes on brownfield land.
Chair of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Network, Mark Bretton, said that using business led partnerships “with a ready-made pipeline of projects” allowed LEPs to respond quickly, and that there were more available when the government was ready to invest further.
“LEPs ‘can do’ business attitude has created a proven track record of complex delivery, landing projects at scale, on time and to budget. The foundations they are building for local recovery in their Five Point Plan will underpin our national recovery.”
The funding was announced alongside the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy providing further details for the £2 billion Green Homes Grant, confirming the inclusion of air and ground source heat pumps as well as solar thermal.
