The North East, Yorkshire and Humber Energy Hub
Background
The North East, Yorkshire and Humber Energy Hub (the Hub), is an initiative funded by the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as part of government policy to deliver clean growth and a pathway to Net Zero Emissions. It covers the geography of six Local Enterprise Areas and 31 Local Authorities, from the Humber in the south to Northumberland in the north.
The Hub is one of five Local Energy Hubs operational in England and hosted in this region by the Tees Valley Combined Authority. The Hub is governed by a Board, with membership comprising the six Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in the region, which provide the strategic direction and oversight for all Hub activity, and these are the North East LEP, Tees Valley LEP, York & North Yorkshire LEP, Leeds City Region, Sheffield City Region and Humber LEP). The Hub works with the LEPs and their partner organisations to engage with a much wider range of stakeholders.
The Hubs were established in 2018, initially as a three-year programme, with each of the regions in England delivering slightly different models of operation.
Hub Purpose
The purpose of the Hub is to deliver Energy Strategy across the region, support and accelerate the development of local and regional, low and zero carbon energy projects across 31 Local Authority boundaries, bring forward business cases that can attract investment in energy infrastructure, share best practice across a national programme, and develop a pipeline of innovative projects to support the regions clean growth agenda.
Hub Activity
Hub activity covers a wealth of projects and programmes and demonstrates energy excellence in the region, with the pipeline currently including 60 projects with a value of £297m. These include projects developing:
- Energy efficiency in buildings
- Zero carbon transport infrastructure
- Decentralised heat and power
- Power storage and supply
- Large scale housing retrofit
- Biofuels and the hydrogen economy
- The circular economy
- Community energy
- Intensive programmes to tackle fuel poverty
The hub also manages the Rural Community Energy Fund, supporting rural communities across the region to develop and set up low and zero carbon energy projects in their area. To date the programme has supported 25 schemes and distributed £980k of much needed funding.
The Future
There has never been a more important time for the Hub to work across all sectors and stakeholders with the Government prioritising and investing heavily in Net Zero and the ‘Green Recovery’. From 2021 the Hub will be managing a £40m+ domestic energy efficiency Green Homes Grant programme for the region, part of the UK’s multi billion pound recovery programme, alongside supporting stakeholders to decarbonise the Public Sector Estate, housing stock across all tenures, and the transport sector.
Find out more: Home – North East & Yorkshire Energy Hub (neyenergyhub.com)
