Southampton City Council's Story
In June 2019 Southampton City Council launched its Green City Charter with the goal that the Council would be carbon neutral by 2030.
To help achieve this, the Council developed plans for a Clean Growth Fund to provide funding to make all its non-residential buildings and street lighting carbon neutral. The programme has the potential to deliver cost savings and annual CO2 savings of around 7,000 tonnes across the 130 buildings involved.
The South West Energy Hub supported the Council to develop a business case for the first phase of the Clean Growth Fund to retrofit three of its buildings. This included researching and advising on the commercial opportunities for generating electricity and income from PV panels and batteries mounted on the buildings. This project identified innovative models for supplying electricity from building to building.
This project includes all the Council's non-domestic properties - such as offices, depots, car parks and schools across the City of Southampton - and is being delivered through a mix of energy efficiency improvements, onsite renewable energy generation and battery storage.
The improvements and installations are being funded by a £20M Clean Growth Fund operated by Southampton City Council. The Clean Growth Fund draws together funding from a range of financing sources including Council funds, Salix Finance, grants and other sources.
Useful Learnings from Southampton City Council
Working with the South West Energy Hub provided Southampton City Council with access to technical expertise to complete the work required.
Southampton City Council's Metrics
Renewable energy generation.
Carbon savings (phase 1 to achieve 129,000kWh/annum).
