Dorset Council officers have been working hard with councillors on plans to update and upgrade Council properties using £19 million of grant funding, awarded to help us tackle the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
Last year, the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) launched the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, delivered by Salix, which offers grant funding for capital energy saving projects such as making public buildings more energy efficient and installing low carbon heating measures.
The Council was successful in applying for grant funding and, since March this year, has been developing a works programme for its properties to determine the best way the money can be spent on reducing the Council’s carbon footprint via its buildings.
The first £300k was spent on surveys and reports to design works and develop heat decarbonisation plans. The remaining money is being spent on the installation of decarbonisation technologies, such as Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs), improving energy efficiency through measures like insulation, LED (low carbon) lighting and the installation of solar panels.
At this stage over 100 feasibility studies and decarbonisation plans have been completed, with more than 40 Dorset Council-owned sites considered for decarbonisation work so far, over 25 projects.
We have looked at off-gas grid properties (mainly schools) where there is no likely alternative for future heat decarbonisation, identifying 15 potential sites for ASHP installation.
We are looking at installing ASHPs, LED lighting, solar panels and upgrades to electrical infrastructure at five corporate sites (buildings operated by Dorset Council) and two leisure centres with swimming pools (Purbeck and Blandford).
The team have also identified nine sites which can’t accommodate heat pumps right now but can be prepared for the future by installing solar panels and upgrading local electricity infrastructure.
Officers are also planning to carry out essential upgrades and future proofing to the Building Management Systems of sites across Dorset (including our corporate estate, schools and academies), targeting almost 200 properties.
Broken down, funding spend has been projected as follows, subject to scheme finalisation:
- £1m – Heating controls upgrade, replacement, and software update at over 120 properties
- £12.5m – Low carbon heating installation, including ASHPs, upgraded radiators, capacity improvements to electrical infrastructure and new heating controls
- £4m – Solar panel installation
- £1.5m – Upgrade to LED lighting
It is estimated that these measures will result in CO2 savings of:
- Heating controls – 1,500 tonnes of carbon emissions per year
- Heating installations (ASHP) –over 600 tonnes per year
- Lighting – over 200 tonnes per year
- Solar Panels – over 300 tonnes per year
This will create total CO2 savings of around 2,600 tonnes annually, and bring financial savings of around £375,000 each year.
Cllr Ray Bryan, Dorset Council’s Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, said:
“This is a very ambitious project, to be delivered in a short period of time, as all works need to be installed and working by the end of March 2022. Therefore, it’s vitally important that we spend this money wisely and efficiently.
We’ve been working extremely hard on making sure we get the best “bang-for-buck” when deciding not only which buildings will benefit most from these projects, but which measures would be most effective in reducing our carbon footprint. And, of course, the less money we spend on energy the more we can put back into essential council services.
We’ll work with local companies on these upgrades wherever possible and share our progress once the heat pumps, solar panels etc. are installed so our residents can not only see what we’re up to but perhaps investigate whether such measures might help them reduce their own carbon footprint.
I want to thank everyone at the Council who has been working on these projects and once again pass our gratitude to the Secretary of State, BEIS and our colleagues at Salix, who are supporting this project.”
Wasn’t this project to have been completed a couple of month ago according to your last announcement about it?
It was Pete, but funding award-winners were given an extension due to delays caused by the pandemic – James
A very timely release of what seems like a fully funded grand plan to practice what you preach. Well done all involved.
Less than 2% financial saving on capital but good nonetheless. this emphasises the need for a lot of upfront capital to make the carbon savings.
As noted, a 50-year payback shows that technologists, suppliers and project people are going to have to make 10 times improvements to everything to make it affordable for some of the rest of us.
That’s like the investment in putting a man on the moon if it’s to be achieved in a decade to hold back rising temperatures. A half-century will be too late. But we have to start somewhere, so good going, DC.