Greg Barker visited Birmingham to congratulate the City Council and Carillion Energy Services on the announcement of its Green Deal delivery partnership.

The 'Birmingham Energy Savers Programme' plans to refurbish around 60,000 homes and non-domestic buildings, creating over 250 new jobs and helping reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2026.

[DECC awarded £2.6m to the City Council last month to help kick start Green Deal activity across the City. Birmingham City Council is the first local authority in the country to appoint a delivery partner for the Green Deal and hopes to attract an additional £3.2m in matched funding for key projects including:

· Community ‘green deal’ - will work with local community organisations to target and deliver to 120 householders and 10 public buildings for installations.

· Tower block offer - solid wall insulation in hard to treat blocks including replacing an obsolete heating systems.

· Working with private landlords - competition to select demonstrators to highlight benefits of Green Deal and potential early adopters.

· Industrial estate retrofit - delivery of energy efficiency retrofit to up to 10 non-domestic properties owned by the council.

· District energy installation - delivering a heating facility on a local community building capable of providing excessive capacity for use by surrounding domestic premises

As of 1 October, the framework for the Green Deal is in place. This will allow the Green Deal market to develop over the next 18 months and go on to meet the Government’s ambitions for a major programme of national energy efficiency retrofit.

From 28th January 2013, Green Deal Providers will be able to offer Green Deal plans to consumers and begin delivering energy efficiency and heating measures worth an estimated £1.3 billion a year.