GB will recruit and train local people to work on the Northumberland project, which gets underway next month and will run through to March next year.

The council work is just phase one of the plans for GB Renewable Energy.

The  new firm aims to also provide private home owners across the region with free electricity for 25 years and also to extend the service to other councils.

GB Renewable Energy has also set its sights on air-source and ground-source heat pumps, biomass boilers and combined heat and power, where its has already established a track record of work. This service will be rolled out to both councils and consumers.

GB plans to help council’s to meet the ‘green’ objectives set by both Government. The firm said its proposition to homeowners would make it affordable for them to benefit from solar heated hot water and other renewable forms of heating and insulation, increasing the value of their homes and reducing the cost of their utility bills.

Martin Smout, chairman and chief executive of GB Group said: “Councils will have higher targets to look at the efficiency ratings of their buildings and we believe that homeowners will see increasing incentives to help them afford the changes needed to their properties to help them make the switch from traditional fuels to renewable.”

Smout added: “At the same time as the renewable agenda becomes ever more urgent, the credit crunch made us examine what we were doing as a company, how we were operating and where the opportunities of the future lay.

“Within the GB Group we have worked on a number of high profile environmental schemes such as Bradford Sustainable Student Village, which is the first BREEAM Outstanding multi-residential scheme in the country, and therefore have in-depth knowledge of renewable solutions in-house.

“Launching GB Renewable Energy therefore makes perfect sense both from an environmental and a business point of view.”