Peterborough residents benefit from country’s largest social housing solar scheme

In 2015, Peterborough’s largest housing association Cross Keys Homes embarked on what it has described as the largest single social housing domestic solar panels installation scheme in the country. It identified around 60 per cent of its housing stock at the time as being eligible for the scheme, and initially 4,700 households took advantage to have the panels installed.

This has grown to around 6,000 in the intervening years.

The reasons behind the project were to help alleviate fuel poverty faced by local families and to reduce the carbon footprint and emissions from homes.

The panels were fitted at no cost to residents or Cross Keys due to its partnership with Global Heat Source and funding by Macquarie Lending.

Cross Keys said it is committed to doing all it can to support tenants who may be in fuel poverty, with the solar panels said to be saving households up to £400 per year.

It added that it is looking at ways to improve the environment now and transition towards becoming carbon neutral.

The solar panel installations are generating 13MW of green energy, equating to a saving of more than 6,500 tonnes of Co2 each year, which is more of a saving produced by some very large solar farms.

Cross Keys chief executive Claire Higgins said: “As an organisation we look at every way we can improve our homes and the lives of the people who live in them. Putting solar panels on the roofs of over 50 per cent of our 11,000 homes has not only reduced the carbon footprint of our estate considerably but also helps to reduce the fuel costs for our residents, helping to lift many of them out of fuel poverty.

“We continue to install panels on new build homes where we can and ensure the homes we build are of the highest environmental specification possible.

“We have also installed panels on our own head office building to reduce its carbon footprint and our fuel costs, which as a non-profit organisation means we can put more money back into our communities.

“We are deeply committed to looking at every green option available and are very proud holders of the Investors in the Environment Green Accreditation.”