The Hub supported East Sussex County Council to develop and secure a successful bid to the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS), which unlocked more than £400,000 in grant funding and a further £500,000 in council match-funding for low‑carbon upgrades across six sites.
The project has had a significant impact on both the council’s savings and local skills investment through its partners. East Sussex Council’s Energy Efficiency team said: “Not only have we made a significant reduction in our carbon and energy costs, but our local contractors have been able to expand their solar PV operations and even take on apprentices.”
The Hub carried out desktop studies for a group of council sites, including corporate offices and a primary school, assessing the feasibility, costs and potential energy and carbon savings of measures such as heat pumps, solar PV and battery storage. The findings enabled the council to prioritise which buildings and technologies to include in a PSDS bid.
The team brokered initial conversations between the council and Salix Finance, which delivers government funding. They helped review draft application materials, sense‑checked energy- and carbon-saving assumptions, and advised on how to frame bids against the scheme criteria.
Using existing relationships, the Hub helped bring the opportunity together in good time and provided ad‑hoc advice on tech, project prioritisation and delivery risks. “They essentially put the costs together for us to be able to put into our application,” says East Sussex County Council, “We didn’t have the knowledge in-house to do that. Having them just on the other side of an email was really useful. Without that, we would have made slower progress, and I would have been a little bit less confident heading first into this.”
The council’s successful PSDS application funded the installation of solar PV and battery storage across six sites, including a primary school and corporate buildings. In total, the project secured approximately £400,000 in PSDS grant funding from Salix and leveraged around £500,000 in council match funding, bringing the total project value to just over £1m.
The upgrades are expected to save in excess of 50 tonnes of CO₂ annually through reduced energy consumption and on‑site renewable energy generation, supporting the council’s wider net-zero ambitions while improving comfort and resilience in frontline public services, particularly schools and other community‑facing buildings. The impact has been wider than this, too. East Sussex County Council said: “We’ve had feedback from at least one of the electrical contractors that through delivering these projects they’ve had the certainty to expand their solar PV operations and even be able to take on apprentices as a result.”
A recurring issue the team highlighted is the lack of effective handover after low‑carbon technologies are installed. In many schools and offices, solar PV arrays or heat pumps have been fitted, but installation contractors have not provided clear training or documentation, and key staff have moved on without passing on knowledge. The Hub’s support in developing proper user training and documentation at handover has ensured a clear point of contact for follow‑up questions. For East Sussex County Council: “We’ve definitely gained a lot of knowledge and learned a lot of lessons about delivering solar PV. We are now able to share these insights with other teams and councils as a result, and have gone on to complete a further 20 solar PV projects in addition to these.”
Get in touch with the Greater South East Net Zero hub for support.
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