Though the local energy strategies vary in approach, common key priorities for the Midlands include:
Focusing on innovation
Securing affordable, low carbon and renewable energy
Building sustainable transport systems
Creating a lean and resilient growth economy
The strategies
Greater Lincolnshire
The Greater Lincolnshire energy strategy has an overarching vision ‘to support the creation of a sustainable system of energy, which meets Greater Lincolnshire’s ambitions for growth and business sector development’.
Leicester and Leicestershire
Steered by its strategic partners in Leicester City Council, Leicestershire County Council, and De Montfort University, the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership worked with consultants to make a commitment to an 80% reduction in CO 2 levels by 2050.
Worcestershire
The Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership’s vision for 2030 is to ‘have a thriving low carbon economy which supports the creation of high value jobs and stimulates investment and clean growth across the county. We will have high quality energy efficient housing stock and a robust, diverse energy infrastructure, underpinned by low carbon generation which utilises Worcestershire’s unique local resources’.
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP has a vision for 2030 which is to become ‘a leader in smart energy and the development of smart cities. The county is a leader in community energy generation and has a secure, distributed energy generation and supply system based on low carbon and renewable participation backed by strong digital infrastructure, delivering reliable and low-cost energy to businesses and communities’.
D2N2 (Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire)
D2N2’s vision for 2030 is to inspire a clean growth revolution. ‘This revolution will be accelerated by the region’s ability to undertake cutting-edge research and development, a proactive public sector, and a highly-skilled workforce. By 2030, D2N2 will be a national pioneer in clean growth and a testbed for world-class energy systems innovation’.
Marches
The Marches area has a vision for 2030 to have ‘an energy generation and supply system which is flexible and reliable, delivering energy that is low carbon and low cost to businesses and communities, can accommodate planned growth and can support well developed low carbon supply chains’.
West Midlands
The three West Midlands LEPs (Greater Birmingham and Solihull, Black Country, and Coventry and Warwickshire) created a combined local energy strategy. Their strategy ‘is about influencing these financial flows to deliver a strategic vision for energy across the region by 2030 which includes:
• Reducing energy costs for our strategic industrial sectors to at least match those of international competitors by delivering a typical 20-25% reduction
• Reducing the incidence of fuel poverty across the region by hitting current government targets five years ahead of schedule
• Delivering the West Midlands’ share of national and global carbon by reducing 26% of regional carbon emissions between 2016 and 2030
• Creating a regional energy infrastructure that adds £1bn to Gross Value Added (GVA) by 2025 by putting the region at the leading edge of the global energy and transport systems transition.’
