Is the National Trust about to turn to renewable energy sources?

According to The National Trust, by 2020 it will have invested close to £30m in solar panels, woodchip boilers and innovative technology designed to extract heat from a lake, in a bid to halve the energy requirements of its estates, historic houses and palaces.

Despite having publicly opposed windfarms on visual grounds in the past, its plan to dramatically increase the £3.5m it has already made in five smaller pilot projects lays out the Trust’s commitment to cutting its fossil fuel usage in half.

In an official statement the Trust’s rural enterprises director, Patrick Begg, outlined the part the Trust must play in curbing climate change, then added more pointedly:

“We have a responsibility to look after the special places in our care, requiring us to make long-term decisions that will protect them for future generations.”

The charity has estimated the renewable energy schemes it has planned for 40 key sites will not only save 2,586 tonnes of CO2 a year, but will also cut its energy usage by 20% simply by being more efficient.

However, the plan is not without challenge.  As the properties are all historic sites, many are off the gas grid and are recognised as being highly energy inefficient.  The good news is that the pilot schemes have been no less challenging and workarounds have been found.

At Ickworth, an 8000 acre Georgian estate in Suffolk, a biomass boiler has replaced the old oil boiler and has been housed in a small building where the gardeners’ shed used to be and has been designed to blend in with the palace’s Italian architecture.

The new green boiler runs automatically 24 hours a day, using wood chippings produced by the estate’s 600 acres of woodland, and creates only waste ash at a rate that just about fills a single wheelie bin every two months.  Visitors can even get inside the shed to see the process at work. To complete its environmental CV, the new ‘shed’ also features customised slots where some of the nine bat species that live on the estate can roost.

The Trust says the new green system at Ickworth will save £13,000 a year in fuel costs, part of the £4m it hopes to save in total when all of the schemes are operational, and that is before taking account of the additional revenue that will be raised when the Trust starts selling the surplus energy electricity the projects generate back to the National Grid.

The Trust is keen to emphasise that the revenue that is created won’t be treated as just another income stream, but will instead by reinvested into additional schemes in the future.

Harrison Drury’s Energy and Utilities team provide legal support for everyone involved in the Energy and Utilities sector.  If you have a question relating to an energy/utility project or an energy/utility-based business, please contact us today: 01772 258321.