Frameworks created by Britain’s biggest council could help some of the country’s smallest local authorities with the cost and complexity of installing solar panels.

Birmingham CC has established two framework contracts to deliver about 2,000 photovoltaic installations at homes, schools and other council-owned properties in Birmingham. One contract covers the supply of equipment. The other covers the installation of equipment, aftercare and other management.

Buy for Good, a sustainable procurement consortium, has been commissioned to act as contracting authority for both frameworks. Birmingham CC has created an internal programme called Birmingham Energy Savers (BES) to oversee the work.

Jenny Howarth, sustainable procurement manager at BES, told Surveyor any public-sector contracting authority could take advantage of the framework contracts. ‘There’s widespread interest from other bodies,’ she said.

Among those interested is Isle of Anglesey CC, which covers fewer than 70,000 residents. It aims to start installing solar panels this month at 329 homes in Holyhead. It has earmarked £1.25m for the project, which would be repaid from feed-in tariff (FiT) income estimated at up to £7.2m over 25 years.

In 2009/10, before the FiT’s introduction, Anglesey installed solar panels in Llangefni under the Welsh Government’s Arbed programme. Shân Williams, Anglesey’s head of housing services, told the council’s board of commissioners on Monday that the Birmingham frameworks offered new advantages.

‘Procurement arrangements and future contract awards are in full compliance with the EU procurement directive,’ she said. This potentially negates the need for other buyers to run their own EU-compliant exercises. ‘The benefi ts of participating in a consortium for this council include significant time, resources and skills efficiencies. The scale of the consortium model enables us to access and achieve demonstrable lower unit costs when compared with the Arbed project.’