Electricity North West: Firm pledges £4 million investment

The money is part of a wider investment of £20 million made across the region by Electricity North West which hopes to kick start an environmentally friendly recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

This comes on top of programmes such as the Samlesbury Aerospace Enterprise Zone, while the company also hopes that this will help the UK meet its carbon reduction targets.

Electricity North West CEO Peter Emery said: “The race is on for the UK to hit its environmental targets and to succeed, we need to act now.

“The disruption caused by Covid-19 also requires an immediate response and we are determined to make the environment the focus by building back better.

“By bringing forward some of these projects, we will power up the green recovery and help lead the north west towards net zero.”

Electricity North West first announced it had identified a number of possible projects in February, when it launched a public consultation to help its investment across the region.

Following that consultation has now brought forward £5 million in investment so that it can deliver a total of 11 projects, all geared to helping the region hit its net zero carbon targets.

The consultation highlighted a demand for electric vehicle charging points at motorway services, while the company is also to create a £1 million fund to support EV charging hubs along major A-roads across the region.

Electricity North West also says that it has a project planned to help monitor demand on the region’s low-voltage network, allowing it to optimise capacity to support the adoption of low-carbon technologies like heat pumps and EVs.

The public consultation was run as part of a national exercise to ensure that communities across the UK were involved in deciding where and when to focus investment to drive the green recovery, which is part of the government’s 10-point plan to make the UK net zero carbon by 2050.

To find out more, go to: www.enwl.co.uk/greenrecovery.