Our Changeprint
Our Changeprint can be measured by the amount of renewable energy generated (wind and PV); reduced energy usage and energy efficiency gains; carbon emission savings; our influence and support to residents, parishes and businesses within the district to take similar action to retrofit energy-hungry buildings and save on energy bills.
Our story
North East Derbyshire District Council is committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and has also declared a Climate Emergency.
This has led to a number of policies being put in place to address this issue both within its own stock of buildings and the housing stock. The Council has also been working in partnership with Parish Councils and directly with residents to give them more support and tools, so we can reduce our collective carbon emissions across the entire district.
A key part of this effort was to identify the most heat-hungry sites that operated within the Council's own stock, which for the Council included its four leisure centres. The centres with swimming pools are naturally energy-hungry and are open for long periods of the day to allow customers to use the facility. In order to make a tangible dent within the our own carbon emissions, Eckington Swimming Pool was identified as the first building to address due to its imminent pool refurbished plans. Effective solutions to make it more heat efficient were implemented immediately such as insulating the roof and cavity walls, putting in a state of the art pool cover along with saving on lighting costs by upgrading all units to LED.
Whilst this was happening, a specialist contractor was commissioned to conduct a technical energy audit which informed a Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme bid of £1M, to source and implement the vast heat pump and air recovery systems. These new systems remove 277 tonnes of CO2 per year, effectively taking the equivalent of over 100 homes off the grid permanently as well as having an immediate positive impact on the air quality.
When this is combined with the successful external wall insulation programme rolled out across the district to 100s of hard-to-treat inefficient council housing, the savings have quickly added up to 1000's of tonnes of CO2 emissions reduced a year, which make a marked impact on the Tyndall forecast data.
By addressing our own energy-hungry buildings and biggest emitters, the Council seeks to make these an exemplar and use our influence to encourage and assist all residents, parishes and businesses within the district to do the same.
Our advice
When carrying out the initial installation works for the heat pump, there were a few issues that needed addressing and unexpected costs incurred as a result of this. Due to the gas boilers being removed and the heat pumps being electric, there was a requirement to upgrade the local substation. This was down to the technologies requiring a vastly larger load which in turn could blow the station. This meant that the Council was obliged to pay for the works to the station in order to it to be able to cope with the extra loads to the grid.
Our main learning from this was to work with the Midlands Energy Hub and Western Power Distribution (the local District Network Operator or "DNO") as early as possible. This way the DNO can be engaged with and plan of action and thus reduce the impact of having to upgrade the grid last minute and/or minimise costs if needed.
In addition, heat decarbonisation projects can be complex and lead to far reaching implications and unforeseen costs, especially when you include the complexity of a leisure centre plant room. Be sure to obtain specialist advice at the earliest stage and where possible, engage with early with a contractor. This ensures that the design and estimates in relation to full costs and forecast emission savings are realistic.
