The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have announced that up to £635 million worth of funding is to be made available to public sector organisations so that they can make upgrades to ensure their buildings are energy efficient.
Schools, hospitals, leisure centres, and historic town halls are to be among the hundreds of public buildings to receive these upgrades, with the aim of slashing energy bills. This could save taxpayers an average of £650 million per year over the next 15 years.
Lord Callanan, Business and Energy Minister, said:
“We are already delivering upgrades to hundreds up public buildings across England. Making them cheaper to run and saving taxpayers millions of pounds each year.
“By helping even more public sector bodies ditch costly fossil fuels, we are taking an important step towards a more sustainable future while driving economic growth across the country and continuing to support tens of thousands of jobs.”
This funding is part of the Public Sector Decarbonisations Scheme, which allows NHS Trusts, schools, local authorities, and more, to apply for government grants from September. The earlier rounds of the scheme are already underway, with 734 grants already awarded to public sector organisations across England.
Phase one of the funding alone was able to support up to 30,000 jobs in the clean heating and energy efficiency sectors.
The main aim of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme is to reduce public sector building emissions by 75% in comparison to 2017, by 2037. This round of funding is the second part of an overall £1.425 billion that is to be allocated over the course of the next three years.
