A SOUTH Lakeland village is celebrating the completion of a number of innovative energy-saving techniques that could help transform the way power is generated and used in the UK.

Casterton is one of 14 communities across the country taking part in the British Gas Green Streets challenge, which encourages places to work together to save and generate energy.

It has received £140,000 from British Gas to install a range of technologies that helps the community to save and generate energy.

Three households in the village now have solar PV panels on the roof, six houses have new boilers, which save around 40 per cent extra heat a year, and two are due to have new biomass stoves.

Residents have also received free insulation, radiator panels which improve the efficiency of central heating systems by reflecting heat back into the room and eco-kettles.

Casterton School has also received solar panels on its roof. This will generate £2,800 a year for the school as part of the feed-in tariff scheme, which pays the owners of solar panels for the electricity they generate.

The school plans to donate half of the feed-in tariff earnings to the village, which has set up a community energy fund to distribute funds generated by the solar panels on the school.

Village co-ordinator Ian Ashworth said he hoped the fund would provide cash to enable other small projects.

He said: “Many of the houses in Casterton are solid-walled cottages, which are notoriously hard to insulate.

“As part of the challenge we’ve shown residents that there are lots of simple things you can do to make your home more energy efficient, like putting in reflective radiator panels. We’ve also installed a number of solar panels and are really excited about the impact the money generated from these will have on our village for years to come.”

Lee Barlow, the British Gas community project manager, said: “One of the most interesting things about Casterton is how the Green Streets project has inspired other communities in the area to start their own local green energy projects.”

If Casterton beats the other 13 villages to become Britain’s ‘greenest’ community, it will win a further £100,000 in early 2011 to invest in a local environmental project.

To follow the progress of Casterton visit the website www.GreenStreets.co.uk