Severnside Housing, one of Shropshire’s largest social landlords, has installed solar panels at its offices and sheltered housing schemes across the midlands area, which will reduce the housing provider’s annual carbon emissions by more than 27 tonnes.
The social landlord’s solar scheme began with work on the roof of Severnside’s Knights Way offices in Battlefield. The site was identified as suitable for solar to help reduce its energy consumption. After the success of the initial install, Severnside Housing decided that residents should benefit from renewable energy sources too. As a result, solar panels were fitted on communal rooms at 11 sheltered housing schemes. At the moment, residents pay a service charge towards their communal facilities, which includes electricity. The solar array will help to offset any future increase in utility costs as a result of energy price increases.
Severnside Housing ensured that only local organisations were chosen to undertake the installation, including Andy Walters Electrical, Salop Energy and MiPower.
Ian Gardner, Asset Management Director at Severnside Housing, said: “As a not-for-profit organisation, it is vital that Severnside uses resources efficiently and ensures value for money for our tenants. Solar panels present a clear opportunity to do this, while at the same time helping residents by reducing the amount they pay for electricity. It was also important that we finished the work before the changes to the feed-in tariffs.”
The completion of Severnside’s solar scheme means that the social landlord has now installed a total 235 solar modules, totalling 56kWp of capacity.
