Race for £1.45bn Birmingham retrofit job tightens

Contractor Carillion, public sector service provider Amey, insulation installer Mark Group and infrastructure maintenance specialist Enterprise, are all shortlisted to compete for Birmingham City Council’s £1.45bn Energy Savers scheme.

The scheme will see a massive roll-out of energy efficiency measures to homes and council buildings in and around the Birmingham area.

The shortlist sees Enterprise team with energy firm RWE npower, Amey join with energy firm E.On and Mark Group work with Scottish & Southern Energy.

Carillion is the only lead bidder that has not teamed with a power company.

Building understands that most of the consortia also include a number of tier two and three contractors that are already in place.

Contractor Willmott Dixon’s Energy Services arm did not make it through to the shortlisting stage.

A spokesperson for the firm said they were unhappy with the amount of risk they would have to take on as a partner in the scheme,

“We were not prepared to accept the apportionment of risk associated with payment defaults and the refinancing of the loan book Birmingham City Council intends to pass over,” he said.

The scheme, which is being headed by Birmingham council but also has 36 other local authorities on board, will be rolled out in two stages. The first pathfinder stage will run until autumn 2015 and see a total investment of £376m in upgrading homes and council buildings.

The local authorities involved will then recoup investment from government schemes such as the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation, which are due to launch this autumn.

There will then be a bigger roll out over the following five years worth £1.07bn.

Last week, Building revealed that the government was considering capping the number of Green Deals available in the early months of the scheme.

But Matthew Rhodes, director of sustainability consultant Encraft and designer of the Birmingham Energy Savers Scheme, said that caps on the roll out would not have an adverse effect on the Birmingham scheme.

He added: “I think the [negative] implications on schemes like Birmingham would be fairly limited. There’s so much momentum behind them now.”