Solar Panels On Stoke-on-Trent Civic Centre Set To Exceed Target

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The 198 solar panels which were installed on Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s Civic Centre building in Stoke in April 2011 have already generated 93% of the predicted target for the first year.

In just eight months the panels generated 27,620 kWh of electricity against an expectation of 30,000 kWh of energy in a full year. Additionally, the panels are attracting the highest feed-in tariff for generating zero carbon electricity from the government for the next 25 years, because they were installed and registered last April. It is estimated that this will see the council receive £9,400 a year.

Councillor Janine Bridges, cabinet member for city services, said

It is fantastic news that so much clean, green energy has already been produced. The solar panels are proving to be a sound investment, not just in financial terms, but also in the positive impact they are having on the environment, and as part of our plans to be a sustainable city. 

As well as providing a constant stream of income, they will also reduce the council’s carbon dioxide emissions by 400 tonnes over their lifetime. This sends out a really strong message that we are committed to improving the environment for future generations. 

There is a deal of uncertainty around the government’s plans for the feed-in tariff for the future. However, I’m pleased to say that this scheme was put in place well before the deadline the government set before Christmas for installations to benefit from the higher tariff. 

We know that a number of other solar panel schemes in the city weren’t able to be completed before the deadline, and we have made strong representations to the government against this.  

However, the performance of the panels shows that they are a very viable way of producing sustainable energy.

The 198 panels were installed onto south and south west facing roofs of the Civic Centre, and cost £134,500 from the council’s existing climate change budget. The estimated £3000 a year saving on electricity costs will mean the panels will have paid for themselves and beging to generate a profit in a mere 45 years. 

Have Your Say

  • Shaun Bennett

    Its quite easy to exceed a target really when the target is kept deliberately low to make it look good.

    “The estimated £3000 a year saving on electricity costs will mean the panels will have paid for themselves and beging to generate a profit in a mere 45 years.”

    Well quite. This is where the money is being spent NOW, during an economic downturn. Is it really more important than essential services I wonder?

    The fact is that this solar panels nonsnense is just another expensive confidence trick by the Green loonies and enviro-MENTALISTS lobby that seems to have so much power today in government circles.

    I suppose solar panels are not such an eye-sore as their wind turbine cousins. But the effectiveness of them is roughly the same-around zero!

    My real gripe with all this is the way in which thousands of acres of countryside and seafront are being routinely spoilt now by the enviro-MENTALISTS insistance that we put up wind farms all over the place-wind farms that generate barely anything at all.

    Rip them down I say! solar panels and wind farms alike!

  • Mike Rawlins

    More nuclear power stations, that’s what we need

  • Anonymous

    So wind farms generate “barely anything at all”?

    Care to justify this?

  • Shaun Bennett

    Well at least nuclear power stations actually generate the energy we need-unlike the solar panels and wind farms projects.

    Guest, yes indeed. It is a fact that in order to generate enough energy just for the day to day demands of London and the South of England, you would presently require nose-to-nose wind turbines covering the entire length and bredth of the country from the Norfolk Wash, right through the Midlands, the North of England, all of Wales, all of Scotland and its many islands.

    And of course the displaced people who can no longer live in Wales, Scotland, the Midlands and North of England would then have to move to the south…which would increase the demand to the extent that even THAT amount of wind turbines would not be enough to generate the power that would be needed.

    Wouldn’t it be lovely if one day solar and wind energy could be a viable option? Yes it would.

    Is it possible now? Not a chance.

    Frankly, we are systematically destroying our countryside and coastlines by erecting these monstrous wind-farms NOT because they do the job. We all KNOW that they don’t do the job. They are there to make the enviro-MENTALISTS and their apologists go all gooey and feel all ‘warm and fuzzy’ inside at the idea that they are doing something “to save the planet”. Bollocks are we! Its all a great big confidence trick by the green lobby.

  • Andi

    Totally agree Mike, we need at least another ten built and on line by 2020 and at least another fifteen for the decade after.

  • Anonymous

    Righteous indignation and histrionics is your forte Shaun. try facts for a change.

    No-one, not even those people you condemn for believing that climate change is man made is advocating only solar or only wind or only nuclear. A good robust system that doesn’t destroy our countryside, the climate or put us at risk from russian oligachs means that we need a MIX of generation sources and wind/solar has a part to play in that.

    As it happens I also agree with Mike that we need more nuclear. What we really don’t need is argument/debate down at your level.

    Oh and if it’s a confidence trick by the green lobby why is it your mate Dave is considering dropping solar from the FiT to INCREASE the budget available for wind? I know Dave claimed to be the greenest government ever but we didn’t believe that did we?

  • Shaun Bennett

    I suppose the ‘guest’ prefers those politicians that use weasel words to skirt around questions rather than giving direct opinions for fear of upsetting someone.

    Forgive me, but I happen to believe in a direct, no nonsense approach. What most people want I expect is a bit of passion in their politics rather than this beige that all parties have spent so long perfecting.

    But as it happens, perhaps I could invite YOU to take a look at the facts. I notice you have not disagreed with the scenario I gave above. But then again, you can’t can you because it is fact. Here’s another one: even if the green lobby get their way and destroys many many more acres of countryside and coastline to erect wind farms they will produce a mere 1.5% of the energy needed!

    Now I don’t disagree that renewable energy is a nice sounding idea. But at the moment that is all it is with no merit in practice on current techonology. I would say to go away and develop the techonology a bit more and then try again, but in the mean time we’ll go with what we know works.

    Neither am I impressed by your strange suggestion that because David Cameron says something, that that in some way should influence what I think. I think the socialists give themselves away a bit with this suggestion that you must always agree with your party and leader mentality.

    If I was being unkind I would say that David Cameron is a great fan of wind. If only we could harness the power of the hot air produced by Team Cameron and his Lib Dem allies, all our energy problems would be solved!

    But the fact you quote-that Cameron is increasing the budget for wind power-is not unreconcilable with what I have in fact said. The enviro-MENTAL conspiracy; the green ‘confidence trick’ has become so powerful that even the Prime Minister has been taken in. Its not his fault really though, he probably gets pro-renewables propaganda shoved at him by his civil servants all day.

    And for the record, I think you’ll find that most people-either openly like mself, or a silent majority that won’t come out and say so in public-are a little more suspicious about this suggestion that climate change is necessarily man made.

    Like it or not, that case is in no way proven yet one way or the other-despite what you may be told by the metropolitan liberal elite that control the instruments of the state.

  • Anonymous

    I would rather politicians formed opinions based on fact and made considered comments and avoided hyperbole.

    But thats not going to happen is it?

  • Anonymous

    So these panels pay for themselves in 45 years, maybe? What every other poster here’s missed is the council/ cabinet/ our elders and betters in the Civic Centre will have the panels removed LONG before then. They pulled down Unity House when the ashtrays got full, they love demolition, especially Victorian heritage. They are such airheads, those panels will end up smashed in a skip, just because they decide they’re uneconomic to repair some minor technical fault – so nobody else can repair and use them, as they’re dog in the manger as well. By the way, what ever happened to the electricity feed in from Campbell Road incinerator?