Salford completes £7.45m estate greening

Work to make some of the council’s buildings more energy efficient has saved enough carbon to power a city twice the size of Salford for a day, according to the authority. 

The £7.45m project was funded through the government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme and saw 2,562 solar panels installed on 21 Salford City Council buildings. 

Air source heat pump systems were introduced to replace previous heating systems at 12 sites and battery energy storage systems were installed at four sites.  

The battery facilities will store excess energy from the solar panels and charge electricity from the grid during cheaper off-peak periods at night to then redistribute this during the day, Salford City Council said. 

In total, the authority has delivered improvements to 30 public buildings across the city, including sports facilities and children’s homes, saving 2,498,663 kilowatt hours of energy and 584 tonnes of carbon. 

“The energy that the programme has saved would get you around the world 301 times in an electric car or be able to power a city of 277,629 houses – which would be over double the size of Salford – for a day,” the city council said in a statement. 

The city council also has plans for a 5,000-panel solar farm in Little Hulton but shelved plans for a hydroelectric scheme at Charlestown Weir earlier this year due to viability concerns.  

Cllr Mike McCusker, lead member for planning, transport and sustainable development, said: “Salford City Council is delivering innovative solutions to make our public estate more sustainable as we work towards our goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2038. 

“However, we know we must do more to address the climate emergency and, in addition to our £126m of investment in our green spaces and walking and cycling routes across the city, our state-of-the-art solar farm will help us turbocharge our ability to generate clean energy in our city.”