100% of Hackney Council electricity now supplied by renewables

Hackney Council has announced it will source 100% of the electricity it uses from renewable sources – as part of its decisive action to reduce carbon emissions and fight global warming. 

The increase – which will see all of the Council’s electricity sourced from wind and solar power – is being introduced alongside a range of other radical decarbonisation measures. 

These include large rooftop solar panel schemes across Council buildings, and the recently-announced Green Homes programme, which will provide free insulation and trial renewable heating upgrades to help residents save money on energy bills while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These schemes are being delivered through the Council’s publicly-owned energy services company, Hackney Light and Power. 

In line with its ambitions to rapidly decarbonise across all of its functions, the Council is also set to install an additional 182 electric vehicle charging points this year, alongside a feasibility study into delivering chargers on every street in the borough, and is also converting all street lamps in the borough to energy-efficient LED bulbs by 2022.

Even in the difficult times we are living through we must still take the long-term action we need to reduce our energy consumption and switch to cleaner energy. In our 2018 Manifesto, we committed to transforming the way we generate, consume, and purchase our energy, and just two years later, we’ve become one of the first councils in the country to be completely powered by clean electricity, showing significant progress towards meeting our stretching targets of 45% decarbonisation against 2010 levels by 2030, and net zero emissions by 2040.

Philip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney
 
 

Whether through the largest urban tree planting programme in the country, our work to decarbonise the land transport sector by reallocating roads towards green spaces and low carbon transport, or by addressing emissions from consumption – through our new object lending library, forthcoming Low Plastic Zone, and the UK’s largest drinking fountain programme – we are proud to be showing that work to tackle the climate emergency must continue, despite the challenges we face as a country at the moment. 

By committing to redirect our current spend on electricity of £6.5m per year towards overwhelmingly domestic energy supply, this decision not only means that the many Hackney schools who procure energy alongside the Council are decarbonising, but also represents a vote of confidence in the UK renewables industry and the many high-skilled, secure jobs of the future it is creating.

Cllr Jon Burke, Cabinet Member for Energy, Waste, Transport and Public Realm

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