A REVOLUTIONARY green scheme to power Kirklees’ homes with renewable energy is on the brink of being implemented.
The £2m Kirklees Council scheme is the first in the country to offer residents the chance of having renewable energy technologies – such as solar panels – installed in their homes with no large up-front costs and no monthly payments or interest payments.
The costs of the installation are recovered from homeowners when they sell their homes.
Other technologies available include, ground source heat pumps, clean burning wood pellet boilers known as Biomass, and air source heat pumps, a type of reverse air-conditioning that re-claims heat from the air.
More than 150 applications have already been received and the first installations could happen as soon as December.
Kirklees Green Party leader, Clr Andrew Cooper, said the scheme had been quite popular and once it was up and running he would seek new funding in a bid to get more households on cleaner fuels. A plan is also being developed to allow non-homeowners to join the scheme later on.
At the council’s cabinet meeting where funding for the scheme was finally sanctioned, he said: “This scheme is revolutionary – pay back has been one of the major barriers but now because the up-front costs have been taken away people can install renewable energy and enjoy the benefits right away.
“I’m starting to hear other councils talking about this scheme and saying it’s something they should consider.
“I think we need to look at the funding of this to see what can be better.”
Clr Cooper later told the Express & Chronicle the scheme had been highly commended at the recent British Renewable Energy Awards and was generating a lot of interest throughout the industry as probably the most realistic way of reducing the carbon footprint of the UK’s homes.
