Great British Energy will expand its public-sector solar programme to military land, adding up to £75 million to a scheme first announced in March and taking total funding to as much as £255 million.
The widened rollout will support around 250 schools, more than 270 NHS sites and about 15 Ministry of Defence (MoD) locations across the country, with participating organisations expected to cut energy bills and reinvest savings in frontline services.
Hospitals and schools in England are already benefiting from the initial £180 million investment confirmed in March. The extension brings additional sites into scope, including roughly 50 more schools and over 70 further NHS facilities ranging from large acute teaching hospitals to community hospitals and mental health and learning-disability settings.
A new partnership between Great British Energy and the MoD will see on-site generation technologies such as solar panels and micro-wind turbines deployed across a range of military locations, including remote training grounds and equipment stations. The aim is to reduce electricity costs and allow savings to be redirected towards core defence spending.
Clean energy job protections
Later in October, the Government’s Clean Energy Jobs Plan is due to set out how UK workers will benefit from hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the sector. The Energy Secretary has unveiled measures to ensure roles created are ‘good jobs’, including action to close loopholes that currently leave some offshore renewable workers with fewer rights than oil and gas workers, and in some cases outside national minimum wage coverage.
The plan will also mandate worker representation on the boards of publicly-owned bodies, such as Great British Energy. In parallel, a new Fair Work Charter will be introduced, tying public funding awarded through the Clean Industry Bonus to commitments on decent pay and strengthened rights at work.
