WORLD leaders and national governments should take a leaf out of Allerdale’s green book, according to environmental think tank Green Alliance.

A study by the think tank found that Allerdale is leading the way with regard to renewable energy in the north west.

Allerdale gets 86.6 per cent of its power from renewable sources, predominantly from on-shore wind turbines, biomass and solar panels. It is the leader by a long way – the next closest authorities are in Lancashire: Rossendale with 54.7 per cent and Hyndburn with 29.9 per cent.

Most local authorities get less than 10 per cent of their power from renewable sources, including Eden, 5.1 per cent, and Carlisle, 3.9 per cent. Copeland is in the top six authorities in the north west with 20.5 per cent.

Power generated by renewable energy across the county is put into the national grid and then sent to where it is needed, so to calculate the figures Green Alliance compared the amount of energy generated by renewable energy sources in an area with that area’s total energy consumption.

Offshore wind was not included in the calculations, though it is the dominant source of renewable energy in the north west. There is enough offshore wind capacity in the north west to meet the electricity needs of one million households.

Amy Mount, senior policy adviser at Green Alliance, said part of the drive behind the research was to show that investment in renewable energy at a local level can have a wider impact.

She said: “Climate change can be a very daunting issue because it’s about the whole planet heating up, but, actually, what these figures show is that communities are already benefiting from the investment.”

Following on from the United Nations Climate Change Summit in December, she argued the research demonstrates that changes are already happening at a local level.

She said: “In December, the whole world signed an agreement in Paris, committing to tackling climate change. But it’s not only global leaders who are taking this agenda seriously. These figures for the north west of England are exciting as they show that local communities are seeing the benefits of the shift to clean energy.

“Across the region, families are putting solar panels on their roofs, and businesses are making major investments in cleantech.

“National government should match these commitments and recognise that it’s what local communities want, by stepping up support for this growing industry.”

She added that the research showed that Cumbria has great weather for renewable energy sources. As well as it being a blustery county, there is also great potential for generating electricity and heat from solar panels.

Figures from Green Alliance show there are 1,231 domestic solar panels in Carlisle; 1,100 in Allerdale; 1,035 in Eden and 692 in Copeland.

When asked why Allerdale was such a leader in the renewable energy sector, Joe Martin, commissioning manager at Britain’s Energy Coast, said: “We are blessed with some great natural resources like good wind speed.

“We also have an energy literate population who can champion both mid and large-scale generation that feed renewable energy directly into the grid.

“This helps us lead in the area now and will help lower the region’s carbon footprint further when new nuclear comes online and we see both baseload and intermittent power coming from low carbon sources.”

He added that it was important in both Allerdale and Cumbria as a whole look towards energy reduction so that not as much needs to be generated, especially as the UK strives to meet carbon reduction targets.