CE Electric UK; CASE STUDY.

NEWCASTLE-BASED CE Electric, the electricity distributor which operates as NEDL in the North East and YEDL in Yorkshire and North East Lincs, has already seen a major increase in the number of renewable energy sources coming online.

Since 2005, it has added 255MW of capacity from alternative sources and the amount is steadily growing.

Jon Bird, pictured, CE Electric's head of sustainability, said: "It was slow to begin with but is going up by several times each year.

"With the increased changes in policy in Government, that'll just go up and up.

"This is mostly large-scale renewables - wind farms etc - but there will be a trend towards district and, indeed, domestic." He pointed to Community Energy Solutions, which has been installing domestic air-sourced heart pumps in areas of the region which cannot access mains gas.

"They have installed two-thirds of the 600 that have been supplied in the UK," said Mr Bird.

"The North East is really quite pioneering in this area." He says the opportunities presented by the low-carbon economy have been likened to those presented by the introduction of natural gas in the 1960s.

"We are very much supportive of what the CBI is suggesting, we believe he Government is moving in the right direction but there are things that should be improved.

"Things always do take a long time - things happen at national policy level and they need to be translated regionally.

"It's evolution rather than revolution. We are a regulated company, Ofgem is not keen on us taking risks so we are steady as she goes.

"It's all very exciting new stuff but the important thing is keeping the lights on for our 3.8 million customers."