Liberal Democrat Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne has announced that Bath & West Community Energy  (BWCE) in Bath will be receiving £30,825 from the first £4m allocation from the Local Energy Assessment Fund.

Locally owned and run  BWCE is one of the first of around 80 local energy projects to win funding from the new £10m Local Energy Assessment Fund.

The money will be used by BWCE to engage local, professional energy specialists who will survey five local schools, Ralph Allen, Oldfield, Newbridge, Bathford, and Colerne primary schools. They will suggest ways of improving energy efficiency and how any improvements could be financed. Using the schools as a base, they will also recruit and train community ‘energy champions’. These champions will work with pupils, their families and the school community to find practical and effective ways to reduce energy in their homes.

At a time when people are worried about rising energy bills, this funding is a welcome boost to help people save energy and keep costs down.  Projects like that of BWCE’s show people that going green is realistic, practical and will help them save money in ways that work in our area.  Local communities will be put at the heart of the UK’s effort to rise to the enormous challenge to get clean and cheap energy on our efforts to halt climate change and to end our reliance on erratic market of imported oil and gas.