OXFORD’S historic Town Hall could be transformed into a “green power plant”, generating clean electricity for the city and cash for council coffers.

A task force of senior city council officers has been charged with developing the plans after the Government gave the go-ahead for local authorities to sell power to the national grid.

Solar energy is the most likely source available and councillors say covering the 19th century Town Hall roof in 21st century panels could net up to £10,000 a year.

Using other council buildings could push that figure closer to £100,000.

The Government estimates renewable energy projects could be worth £100m per year to local authorities in the UK, and becoming a key player in the green power revolution could provide a much needed income stream for the city council as it prepares for lean years ahead.

The leader of the city’s Green group, David Williams, said the idea was realistic and the technology could be installed on a short timescale.

“There are companies that could come on to the scene within weeks as long as we can identify the locations,” he said.

“We could generate £10,000 from the Town Hall, but we have other big buildings like St Aldate’s Chambers that could also be used to generate electricity and money.”

Financing the initial set up is likely to be the biggest hurdle the council needs to clear.

Mr Williams added: “Although the new Government may give us freedom to do this, they will be cutting our government grant and we need that money to install the power generation units.

“It will happen – the only question is whether it will be slow or fast.”

Mr Williams met council chief executive Peter Sloman to discuss the proposals, and a group of senior officers led by director of city services Tim Sadler will be assessing the full potential of council-generated green power.

John Tanner, the council’s executive board member for a cleaner, greener Oxford, said: “We are keen to take advantage of this, boost city coffers and help tackle climate change.”

City council spokesman Louisa Dean said: “We are already looking at the potential across all our buildings to install solar panels, generate electricity and capitalise on the feed-in tariff mechanism.”

The council already has experience of small-scale renewable energy projects.

It has fitted solar panels and air-source heat pumps to new council houses in Rose Hill. The showers at Hinksey outdoor swimming pool are also heated by solar panels.

Until now, local authorities could only put renewable electricity they generated to local use and were restricted from selling any excess renewable electricity to the national grid, other than that generated from combined heat and power.

Energy Secretary Chris Huhne wrote to council chief executives last week to tell them that the ban had been lifted.

He said: “This is a vital step to making community renewable projects commercially viable, to bring in long-term income to benefit local areas, and to secure local acceptance for low carbon energy projects.”