Northwest funding for low carbon projects helps reduce region’s footprint
Elaine Brass
12th January 2010
A hydroelectric social enterprise is one of three companies based, or running projects, in the Northwest that have won £100,000 or more of funding in the first round of the Northwest’s Carbon Challenge Fund (CCF), which supports the deployment of low carbon technologies in the region.
Water Power Enterprises (H2oPE) has received £100,000 towards the cost of establishing a community-owned micro-hydro scheme in Stockport – the Otterspool Community Hydro. The Stockport site is expected to generate 190 megawatts of electricity an hour annually, enough for 40 homes in the area, and save 81.25 tonnes of CO2 a year.
In all, the CCF, which launched last year and is funded by the North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA), has awarded £435,000 in its first round of funding.
The other two projects to received funding are a state-of-the-art energy efficient clean-room air-conditioning system at Oldham-based manufacturing plant, Diodes Zetex Semiconductors Ltd, and an energy-reducing sewage process at a wastewater treatment plant owned by utility company United Utilities.
Diodes Zetex is being match funded £135,000 by CCF to design, manufacture and install the energy efficient air-con because it will not only eliminate the use of ozone depleting HCFCs but also save 1,600 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year at the company’s manufacturing plant. NWDA says the project will ensure that operational costs at the plant will be lowered, jobs safeguarded and EC legislation pre-empted. Once completed, NWDA says Diodes Zetex’s green air conditioning system will be a model of regional best practice for other industries that use clean-room air conditioning such as healthcare, pharmaceuticals and data storage.
Meanwhile, United Utilities, the region’s utility company, has been awarded £200,000 to put towards its £950,000 energy-reducing sewage process at its wastewater treatment plant in Ellesmere Port.
NWDA claims that so far, the CCF has saved 17,350 tonnes of CO2 emissions and safeguarded 75 jobs in the region.
Steven Broomhead, chief executive of the NWDA, said: “England’s Northwest has long been a pioneer for innovation, forward thinking attitudes and the willingness to develop and progress. Projects selected for the Carbon Challenge Fund represent a key part of the agency’s commitment to creating a low carbon economy in England’s Northwest – improving efficiency, reducing costs and safeguarding jobs.”