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Borough sets sights on becoming London's green capital

The Borough of Barking and Dagenham is flexing its green energy muscles after councillors agreed to establish an energy services company in the borough.

B&D Energy Limited, the company which will be set up following Tuesday’s council meeting, will look to develop heat networks across the borough, helping to cut its carbon footprint and generate savings and investments for residents.

It is part of a borough-wide effort to make Barking and Dagenham one of the greenest areas in the capital, after it conducted a survey of all 72,000 residential and 4,200 commercial buildings and their energy characteristics.

Stemming from the survey, the council plans to inform residents about when and where they can switch to cheaper sources of fuel, introduce energy-savings measures to the borough’s most wasteful buildings and invest £7.4 million from the Green Investment Bank in energy-efficient bulbs all 14,000 street lamps in the borough.

Outlining the council’s vision, Leader of the Council, Councillor Darren Rodwell, explained: “Our 15 year strategy aims to reduce fuel bills for local residents and to address fuel poverty. We want to move from being a borough that gets just 2.5 per cent of its energy from renewable sources – the London average - to one that by 2025 gets over 25 per cent from low carbon, decentralised and renewable sources.”

B&D Energy’s focus, once it has been incorporated, will be to invest in low carbon energy projects with particular focus on developments that reduce social inequality and improve environmental performance.

The council has already outlined specific developments that the new company will support, including the development of a combined heat and power system across seven low carbon heat network district energy areas as well as rolling out solar panel electricity generation.

B&D is expected to start trading in early 2017 according to the council.

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