Watch how The Hub helped Braintree District Council secure funding and deliver a solar energy project that is reducing costs and carbon emissions at Witham Leisure Centre.
Hear from Braintree District Council’s Sustainability Manager:
“It’s very much put green energy on the map for us. So we’ve now got just shy of 100 megawatt – hour of solar, bringing in an energy bill saving of c.£70,000 a year. We also replaced the entire lighting in the leisure centre with LEDs, which had a huge impact on energy saving, paying back within a year.”
As a council that covers both built and rural areas, Braintree District Council was keen to serve its communities, reduce its carbon emissions, and also ensure that vital community leisure services could be safeguarded from rising energy costs. As keen champions of the environment, the Council also has ambitious net-zero targets to achieve by 2030.
When the need arose to renew and extend the solar PV array at Witham Leisure Centre, the Council saw an opportunity to maximise energy generation by building a new solar canopy over the car park. The Council’s sustainability team had been made aware of funding available from Sport England, but they only had 6 weeks before it closed.
The Hub team partnered with the Council to develop an application on time, securing funding and turning the project from a dream into reality. The resulting solar arrays provided a capacity of 407 kWp, saving just under 36,000kg of carbon per year.
The Hub helped by providing quick and responsive support for the Council’s grant application to Sport England. Within three weeks, the team had produced a mapping report and scope of work that showed what would be possible, the costs involved, and the net carbon and energy savings. Once the grant had been secured, the Hub’s team again provided support, offering insight into potential suppliers and approaches to keep the project on time and on budget.
Not only were the solar arrays installed ahead of time and in budget, but the Council was also able to replace the centre’s lighting with LEDs, making an additional saving.
The Hub provides support to local authorities developing ambitious carbon reduction projects. The expertise the Hub’s team provided meant Braintree District Council could submit a robust and credible proposal. The report developed not only helped to secure the Sports England grant, but it also laid the way to secure match funding from the Council themselves, making up the full cost of the project.
Chris Parkin of the Hub added: “Solar canopies can provide great value to public services and we were able to provide additional resources for the Council where they needed it, helping them to move fast to secure the initial grant”.
Braintree District Council says: “We found the help of the Hub invaluable. There’s no way we had the team capacity and expertise to submit a full proposal within the 6-week time frame for the funding. Without that, the project would not have got off the ground”.
Both the Hub and Braintree District Council are excited about the clear replicability of this project.
Chris Parkin of the Hub says, “The value of solar canopies is that they can be placed on existing car parks, generating extra value from an existing space. The energy generated can be fed back into their associated buildings, making a huge saving in both energy bills and carbon footprint.”
Get in touch with the Greater South East Net Zero hub for support.
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