Low carbon work at a Council storage facility has reduced energy use on a monthly basis by nearly 75 percent

The Council’s Energy Team has completed a project to reduce energy usage and also lower long term energy costs at the Council’s Corporate Stores site at Lon Parcwr, Ruthin

The team has looked after several projects across Council buildings that aim to improve energy efficiency and also support the reduction of carbon emissions and usage costs over the longer term.

This ongoing work is part of the Council’s drive to address the climate and nature emergency declared in 2019 and reduce its own building carbon footprint as part of the response.

Corporate Stores supports services across the Council by providing needed storage facilities.

The Energy Team installed a new LED lighting system which can help to reduce building lighting electricity consumption by at least 50 percent

Together with the LED system and 11kW of PV solar panels were also installed on the roof of the building to harness the sun’s energy to reduce usage from the National Grid. Energy efficiency improvements to the heating controls have also been completed.

This combined work has seen a monthly reduction of energy use by up to 75 percent in the summer months at the site, leading to a cost saving of £1109 per month. Annual savings of over £11,000 per annum are expected. The carbon emissions savings will be over 11 tonnes per year.

Martyn Smith, Property Energy and Carbon Manager, said: “Corporate stores is a unique building for us to tackle as there are very few windows on the building which means virtually no natural light and lighting is a priority as it is the primary energy consumer. Using an LED system to address the need for regular lighting in the building, supported by the PV panels has helped us achieve this large reduction in energy use and also lower energy costs over the long term.

Projects carried out on other Council owned buildings has also seen the Energy Team pass the important landmark of over a megawatt of installed renewable energy capacity (1099kWp). Most of this is generated from roof mounted solar PV panels. Each Kilowatt generated by PV can save around 30 pence.

Cllr Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “We are committed to continuing to ensure that our carbon footprint is reduced across the county by looking at the buildings we own and initiating projects to help cut emissions and save energy costs in the long term.. As well as our estate, we are also working on projects to support the reduction of carbon output from our fleet, private vehicles and also boosting biodiversity resilience across the county.