Hertfordshire County Council has secured a £15m funding boost to help it combat climate change in the region.
The county council will now be able to use this funding to deliver a number of sustainability-led projects at a number of its sites including its school estate, fire stations, libraries and main office buildings.
Installation of an air source heat pump at one site, an air handling unit upgrade at another and the mass installation of solar panels at 23 fire stations within the local authority’s borders are among the projects now able to be funded.
Collectively, along with the modernisation of a number of modern, energy efficient boiler systems at various schools across the county, these measures will help maximise green energy consumption and significantly reduce harmful outputs.
The £15m funding was awarded from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, set up by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). It is designed to enable public sector organisations to tackle climate change by delivering capital energy efficiency schemes and heating decarbonisation projects.
In its Sustainable Hertfordshire Strategy, the county council committed to be a carbon neutral organisation by 2030.
Teresa Heritage, Deputy Leader for Hertfordshire County Council, said: “This is fantastic news and another positive step for us in achieving our countywide sustainability goals.
"We are leading in our efforts to fight climate change as an organisation and have committed, through our recently approved Sustainable Hertfordshire Strategy and Action Plan, that the management of all our operations will have an exemplary sustainability focus.
“Research has shown that buildings and transport are the highest emitters of carbon in our county.
"This funding will go a long way in helping us to achieve our goal of being carbon neutral in our own operations by 2030.”
