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Council backs £15m energy scheme
A MULTI-million pound scheme to use council-owned buildings to generate “green” energy for Peterborough and beyond has been given the go-ahead.
Members of Peterborough City Council’s cabinet gave its backing to the £15 million scheme yesterday which will see the installation of solar panels on the roof of three council buildings.
Buildings in line for solar panels are the Town Hall, in Bridge Street; the Regional Pool, in Bishop’s Road; and the former Freemans building, in Ivatt Way, Westwood.
The authority could not only cut its electricity bill by harnessing the power generated, but raise £500,000 a year for the next 25 years by selling on the surplus.
Cllr David Seaton, cabinet member for resources, said: “In these very financially challenging times it’s really important we do not just rely on our existing income streams and this is a really important step along that road.”
The council had already contracted Prescient Power Ltd to supply and install solar panels on the Town Hall and the Regional Pool.
They will cost a total of £319,908, but the council claims it will save £28,838 a year for the next 25 years.
The biggest project of the three will see photo-voltaic panels installed on the 900,000 sq m roof of the former Freemans building, costing between £12 million and £15 million.
These could generate enough electricity to power about 4,600 homes and make the council £500,000 a year from selling excess power to the National Grid for the next 25 years.
Cllr Janet Goodwin asked whether the repayment costs towards the investment could be paid off early on the back of these profits and help avoid further interest costs.
But executive director for strategic resources John Harrison said: “My recommendation is we need that money to keep your service going now.
“It’s about keeping the council going at the moment and this is a valuable source of income.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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Comments
There are 6 comments to this article
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henry
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 07:57 PMLoad of clap-trap you can not say with any certainty what PV systems will produce over a given time (it depends on the sun shining) and not even PCC can control that!
voyager
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 03:01 PMPrescient Power is a Leicestershire based company (Ashby de la Zouch), so I must presume there was a competitive tender process for this work which excluded Peterborough based companies (Aurora, Anglian etc) from doing the work which would have provided work for locals and boosted the local economy?
DonB
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 02:19 PMHair brained if ever I saw it. Invest during a deep recession to score brownie points in the name of the global warming hoax. Fill potholes with the money and all of us will see the benefit. Yes, that means you too, on the buses.
eggcraft
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 01:05 PMThey should make the staff pedal on special bikes during their breaks. The electricity could be harvested.
P19WKR
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 12:18 PMSomething thats costs £319000 but only saves £28000 over 25 years hardly seems worthwhile as surely in the next few years even cheaper and more efficient things would be available, in fact im sure that if that £319000 was invested it would make more than £28000. What about breakdown and maintenance repair bills etc, never heard so much rubbish !
Kevin
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 11:23 AMMost recent work on energy conservation tends to show that what is needed and saves most is just that - energy conservation. Schemes which have that wiff of 'vanity project' such as solar panels do very little, if anything to raise energy conservation. If people think it's free they go on using it requiring ever more windmills and solar panels, but "not in my back yard". Schemes such as this would have far more credibility if those pushing them actually had an open book policy where any member of the public could ask to see the 'figures so far' showing just what the returns, raw data not council manipulated, actually gave. The credibility would be further enhanced if those planned figures and the measurement against them were used to determine whether those pushing them so hard still had a job. So John we pay you a lot of money to get these things right put your job and pension on the line if you are confident that the returns will be met. It's a win win situation the residents get an excellent service and you get an excellent salary and pension. Of course if the figures are marketing hype I dare say that you will not be prepared to gamble with your money as you are with ours.
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