Clean air retrofit firms win £1m of government funding

The government will spend £1m supporting three vehicle retrofit technology suppliers cut emissions from a range of vehicle types.

Award letters have been sent out to Eminox, Proventia and Baumot for a total of £971,544, awarded over 2018/19 and 2019/20.

The funding is being awarded under the Clean Vehicle Retrofit Accreditation Scheme (CVRAS) which was developed by the LowCVP and Energy Saving Trust.

The CVRAS scheme aims to increase the range of vehicle retrofit technologies capable of cutting emissions from larger road vehicles already in use and enable them to meet Clean Air Zone and ULEZ requirements that are being introduced by some local authorities.

LowCVP’s Managing Director, Andy Eastlake, said: ‘We need a range of policy tools to tackle the urgent problems associated with air pollution. Adopting electric vehicles or changing to the latest clean new trucks and buses needs to be in operators’ longer-term plans, but we also need more immediate options to deliver cleaner air in the shortest time possible.

‘Developing robust retrofit solutions for ‘hard-to-tackle’ vehicles is an expensive business and this funding will help bring more fully accredited solutions to the market.

‘I’m delighted to see these new solutions in the pipeline and would reiterate that operators must use accredited systems only to meet CAZ requirements. They should not be tempted by a non-approved product; if it looks too good to be true, it probably is!’