Siemens and EDF are joining a coalition of local leaders in the UK to lobby the Chancellor Rishi Sunak to pledge £5bn toward renewable energy and energy efficiency.
By unlocking private sector investment, this would net a return of £100bn to support the British economy, including potentially £40bn for energy efficiency – exceeding the promised target of £9.2bn in the Conservative manifesto.
The package could create over 300,000 jobs, helping to level up all parts of the country and build back better, the lobbyists said.
A research report sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, UK100, Siemens and EDF will be presented to Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng at a meeting on Monday 13 July.
A separate study for UK100, launched as part of a resilient recovery taskforce shows that 3.1 million jobs will need access to skills and training from government and industry as part of a green recovery.
UK100 is a network of over 100 mayors and local leaders from across the country.
UK100 director Polly Billington said: “If ministers are to meet their manifesto promise on energy efficiency in our homes, which are some of the leakiest in Europe, they need to kickstart a renewable revolution.
“This would help hard-pressed consumers save on their fuel bills, support hundreds of thousands of jobs and protect the environment.
“£5bn now would unlock £100bn to rescue the UK economy and deliver on the Prime Minister’s ambitions of levelling up and meeting Net Zero.
“The Chancellor’s statement, while welcome, should have had far more front-loaded investment.”
Siemens UK chief executive Carl Ennis said: “There is an urgent need to scale up local, sustainable, energy if the UK is to have any chance of meeting Net Zero by 2050.
“This requires a collective national effort with government, business and the public all playing our part. Local energy should be at the heart of the National Infrastructure Strategy creating a more consistent policy landscape that will give investors the confidence to invest earlier.”
UK100 has partnered with Siemens UK on a study that argues that a more “balanced energy system” is required with the right mix of local decentralised energy systems alongside large scale generation.
Members of the public and energy consumers will become generators themselves under the proposals.
Local energy projects include retrofitting homes, onshore solar and wind power, biomass, electric vehicle charging and smart grids.
The group is also calling for the establishment of a net zero development bank that would bring together all government financing for the transition to net zero and kickstart local energy schemes which are at too early a stage to be attractive to private finance.
The bank would provide a single gateway to government support, replace lost funding from the EU within a more stable regulatory regime.
The report is the outcome of an 18 month programme of five workshops held across England – in Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, Leicester and Manchester – and expert interviews sponsored by BEIS and Siemens UK bringing together 327 experts from local authorities, business, academia, NGOs and local economic partnerships (LEPs) to discuss green financing.