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The Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks, has announced the new funding to increase the use and implementation of low carbon technologies across the East of England. The £1 million fund is part of the government's Low Carbon Building Programme (LCBP) funding and is to be managed by EEDA.

The money will be used to install domestic microgeneration technology to reduce dependency on traditional fossil fuels amongst targeted communities. Microgeneration technologies include air-source and ground-source heat pumps, and domestic wind energy turbines Successful pilot programmes have been run in the North East of England and Yorkshire and the programme is now being rolled out to the East of England and Wales. EEDA is one of three Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to be selected to manage the funds.

Richard Ellis, chair of EEDA, said:
"I am delighted that the East of England has been chosen by the government for the extension of this pilot programme with EEDA managing the £1 million fund to help fight fuel poverty with investment in low carbon technologies.  It is estimated that one million people (nearly 1 in 5) are living in fuel poverty in the region even in the most buoyant parts of the economy.

"The Low Carbon Building Programme funds will deliver and test the benefits of installing microgeneration technologies into deprived communities across the region and lessen the pressure on those at greatest risk from fuel poverty. This additional money will cut household bills and strengthen further our response to climate change simultaneously."

"This activity will complement EEDA's existing Cut your Carbon campaign which provides £2.5 million in funding to enable communities to work together to reduce their carbon emissions. The first funding round of the three year £2.5 million funding project closes at midnight on Thursday, 12 June."
 
The Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks, said:
"Low-income households, often without access to mains gas, are those that can most benefit from microgen technologies, and we hope that this pilot will increase the number of installations in those houses.  It will help us better to understand the role microgeneration technologies for space-heating can play in helping the fuel poor, building on the wider support that is already available."

Cut your Carbon campaign manager, Alex Menhams added:
"There is £500,000 of Cut your Carbon funding available for carbon cutting initiatives in the region in this round and prospective groups can find all the information they need on our website http://www.cutyourcarbon.org.uk/. In this pathfinder round we anticipate that most of the entries will come from communities who are already fairly well down the line in their carbon cutting plans. They will then act as an example to others to demonstrate what can be achieved."

The £1m of funding to help fight fuel poverty has been made available in order to run a pilot project across the six counties of the East of England (Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk) and aims to help lift targeted communities in the region out of fuel poverty.
 
The details of the scheme are yet to be finalised and EEDA is currently working closely with its regional partners as well as the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) on the next stages. This process is likely to take several weeks.