Coventry City Council's Story
This project will deliver the installation of 1072kWp of solar photovoltaic roof mounted systems across public buildings in Coventry.
This will help to reduce the council's direct emissions by 355 tCO2 through the generation and onsite use of 925 MWh of renewable electricity each year. This represents approx. 18% reduction in imported electricity demand from the properties included in this project. The savings will be measured through the use of generation meters on the installed systems and comparison of before and after imported energy calculations from Energy Performance Certificates. This project is Match Funded by European Regional Development Fund.
In addition to the output specific benefits that will be measured for this project, this project will also support Coventry City Council in its wider long term carbon reduction ambitions as it will also present opportunities to support the transition to less carbon intensive sources of heat and transport that would also help reduce the carbon emissions of Coventry City Council further without putting additional stress on Coventry's already stretched electrical grid network.
It will also support the development of knowledge and capacity for similar projects within Coventry City Council. This will enable the council to better support businesses and residents within the Midlands in their transition to a low-carbon future.
Useful Learnings from Coventry City Council
The project aims to support the de-carbonisation and energy security through increasing the amount of renewable self-generation capacity associated with public buildings owned and operated by Coventry City Council.
Coventry City Council's estate currently imports 100% of its annual 9,523 MWh electricity demand from the grid each year across 156 operational locations. This accounts for 25% of the annual carbon emissions of Coventry City Council's operations.
Initial feasibility works identified 61 public buildings within the estate that would be suitable for integrating roof-mounted Solar Photovoltaic (Solar PV) systems. This was reduced to 32 public buildings following a review of proposed estate and operational changes planned for 2020-21 onwards. The project therefore aims to install a total capacity of 1072 kWp of Solar PV systems across the 32 feasible and eligible locations.
These public buildings range from operational administration offices and service depots to community and educational support properties. The project will involve full design, installation and commissioning of these Solar PV systems. These installations are all roof mounted applications with the purpose of maximising the use of renewable generation onsite.
The proposed Solar PV schemes in this project are expected to generate 925 MWh of electricity to be used by the council each year. The energy generated will be fed directly to the public buildings they are fitted to and will result in 18% of their electricity demand being supplied by onsite renewable generation. The schemes will include real-time monitoring systems to enable ongoing review of the performance of the PV panels and allow the optimisation of building services to best utilise the self-generated power. This will maximise the benefit of the solar PV installations.
The expected life of the systems installed is 25 years which presents a significant whole life carbon benefit to this project. The project will also aid the deployment of new low carbon and flexible technologies (eg. battery storage, heat pumps, and electric vehicles) within these buildings in the future as they transition away from traditional fossil fuel based building services.
The project is managed by a dedicated Project Manager and delivered using a sub contractor. This is a European Regional Development Fund match funded project. Since we are the initial stages of delivery, learning outcomes are yet to be analysed.
Coventry City Council's Metrics
kWh of electricity produced through solar PV generation.
