West Witney Primary School was our 31st solar school, with 108 solar PV panels owned and managed by Low Carbon Hub. Installed at no cost to the school, the scheme is one of the projects supported by the Low Carbon Hub’s 2019 Community Energy Fund share offer. The panels have an installed capacity of 30kWp and a predicted annual generation of 28,820kWh of clean electricity every year, helping to power the school and reduce its reliance on the carbon intensive national grid.

This generation means that West Witney will be meeting approximately 18% of their energy needs through the panels as well as saving 11 tonnes of CO₂ emissions each year. The project is projected to save the school around £15,000 over the lifetime of the project by reducing their energy bills.

West Witney is a part of the Eco-Schools programme and they also have an Eco-club full of very enthusiastic volunteers from across the school. They aim to meet twice every term and work together to plan activities to raise awareness and tackle issues such as litter, recycling, saving energy and looking after the school environment. They have already given all classrooms thermometers to measure the temperature, put timers on the laptop and iPad trolleys to ensure they are only charged overnight and produced a checklist for monitoring classrooms’ use of energy.

We now have over 30 schools across the county who are benefitting from cheaper energy bills as they receive discounted green electricity produced by their solar arrays. These schools are leading the way in helping to cut our county’s carbon emissions and demonstrate their commitment to the environment. They are also supporting the education of pupils by demonstrating, visually, the role of renewables in a low carbon future energy system.

Could your school be a solar school?

If you work in a school in Oxfordshire, and you’re interested in finding out more about how your school could work with us to install a solar array, please contact our Projects Manager.