Councils to be allowed to sell green power
July 28, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Chris Huhne, the Climate Change Secretary, has announced that a ban on the selling of green electricity by councils will be overturned in the near future. He has confirmed that he wants local councils to be able to produce their own green electricity and to sell it to the National Grid.
The original ban came into force under the 1976 Local Government Act. Huhne wants to see the ban overturned so that councils can start to produce electricity through green technology such as wind power and anaerobic digestion. He is hoping that that ban will be overturned within six months.
It could lead to a huge increase in small-scale energy generation by local councils, which would help the government to reach its green energy targets.
Huhne said that it is “ridiculous that the 1976 Local Government Act prevents councils from selling electricity”. Once the ban is repealed he expects to see local authorities generate revenue to keep Council Tax down and to help local services.
New data on council emissions has also been released which shows the amount of CO2 that was produced by councils in the 2008/09 financial year.
The councils with the lowest emissions were East Cambridgeshire with 574 tonnes, East Northamptonshire with 606 tonnes and Broadland with 806 tonnes.
The worst performers were Birmingham with 177,360 tonnes, Hertfordshire with 168,570 tonnes and Lancashire with 157,890 tonnes
In all, a total of 8.3 million tonnes of CO2 was released by local councils, making up 1.6% of the total emissions for the UK.
