Portsmouth City Council solar panel project will begin next week

Cabinet member for the environment and climate change Kimberly Barrett said the £30m borrowed for the Low Carbon Projects Fund would allow it to undertake ‘some really significant schemes’.

Among them is the £11m Lakeside project, described as one of the largest of its kind in the country, which will have a generation capacity of 4.5mw and is expected to save almost 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

Council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson said work was ready to start and that these initiatives made Portsmouth City Council ‘the greenest in the south of England’.

‘My understanding is that we will be at Lakeside next week starting to work,’ he said at Tuesday’s meeting of the council. ‘That's 40,000 solar panels we will have by the end of this project on city council buildings.

‘Having our offices powering our investments is great in terms of reducing the energy bill at Lakeside but it's also great in terms of reducing the carbon dioxide.'

He added that the council was working with the biggest organisations in the city, including the Royal Navy, the NHS and the University of Portsmouth, to 'share expertise' and encourage similar initiatives to be brought forward.

Other projects already earmarked as part of the new fund is an extension of the solar panels at Mayfield School and a similar project at an unnamed industrial estate, with all aimed at making the council a long-term profit.

But Conservative group leader Simon Bosher urged the Lib Dem administration to also consider non-solar projects when deciding how to spend the money, which will be borrowed through the Public Works Loan Board.

‘I will be looking for projects that go beyond sticking solar panels on absolutely anything and everything, which is a visible thing,' he said, citing the example of an insulation project he is involved with at Islington Borough Council which is expected to save the authority £3.5m and 30 tonnes of emissions a year.

Cllr Barrett said the money would be used beyond solar panel projects, including both insulation and ground source heat pump installations and said there were schemes ‘in the pipeline’.

‘[The fund] will lead to around 3,000 tonnes of carbon being saved - a crucial amount when considering the target that we need to hit in the coming years,’ she said. ‘It means that we can look to invest in projects that relate not just to reducing energy demand but also look towards developing further renewable energy generation.

‘It would also mean that aside from focusing on ourselves and our own buildings and our own property, we can look to help schools and employers to reduce their carbon across the their estates.’

She said the council had ‘a duty’ to support organisations across the city to invest in green energy projects.

The Lakeside project will see about 10,000 solar panels will be installed, including 1,900 mounted on the roof across five buildings, and 8,000 on canopies above the car parks.