CARBON REDUCTION AND NET ZERO


Solar farm the size of three football pitches to be operational this month


A solar farm which will power Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital for three quarters of the year is set to be up and running this spring. The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust


(RWT), in partnership with City of Wolverhampton Council, has built the solar farm at a former landfill site, the size of 22 football pitches, adjacent to Bentley Way, Wednesfield. Set to open this month, the facility will power the entire hospital site with self-generated renewable energy for around 288 days a year, saving the Trust around £15-20 m over the next 20 years. It will produce 6.9 MWp of renewable energy for New Cross Hospital, and generate an estimated carbon saving of 1,583 tonnes of CO2


e per annum.


Over 15,000 electricity-generating solar panels have been installed at the site by main contractor, Vital Energi. Work to secure the 40-plus acre brownfield site included protecting badger setts, and removing methane. The project, combined with existing green technologies, will allow the Trust to move away from reliance on the national grid, and reduce its exposure to rising electricity costs in the next two decades. It also supports its goal of reducing its carbon emissions by 25% by 2025, and of reaching ‘Net Zero’ carbon emissions by 2040. Pictured – left to right – are Jon Gwynn, Project director, Carbon and Energy Fund (CEF), Ashley Malin, MD, Vital


National approach to standardisation “Crucially,” Lord Markham added, “many of these hospitals will be constructed using our national approach to standardisation, Hospital 2.0. By embracing improvements such as common design pod principles, and Modern Methods of Construction, we will decrease the average time to develop and build hospitals by just under half, from 11.5 years to six years, and accelerate government assurance processes.” This standardised approach also offered what he dubbed ‘fantastic potential for NHP’s commitments on Net Zero and sustainability’ – explaining why NHSE had recently published its Net Zero Building Standard, which aims to limit carbon emissions and provide tools to measure and report on whole-life carbon for all major NHS infrastructure projects. Going forward, Lord Markham said all NHS projects would use the standard


40 Health Estate Journal April 2024


Energi, Professor David Loughton CBE, Group Chief Executive of The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, and Stew Watson, Group Director of Estates at RWT.


Ashley Malin said: “We’re delighted


to have transformed a former coal mine and landfill site into this impressive solar farm – the largest single source of green energy on a UK hospital site. The clean energy will power the hospital’s air source heat pumps, and significantly reduce its carbon footprint.” Work has also been completed on the underground cabling to connect the hospital to the solar farm. RWT has received around £15 m in grant funding for the project – comprising contributions from the Government’s Levelling-Up fund, the NHS, and Salix Finance. The Trust also received a further £33 m to carry out ‘green energy works’ as part of the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.


said: “That’s why I’m delighted that this government has invested over £800 m in public sector decarbonisation scheme funding for the NHS since 2020.” In all, 94 projects had installed everything from a solar system at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton as part a £30 m grant, to a major heating and cooling system and energy efficiency upgrade project at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, with brand new air and ground source heat pumps backed by over £40 m in government funding. “Crisply,” Lord Markham added, “this investment comes at no opportunity costs for the NHS capital budget. It is wholly funded from energy departmental budgets. That means we’re still investing directly in other NHS promises. This financial year alone,” he continued, “that equates to £4.2 bn in upgrading modernising NHS buildings. Indeed in many cases that investment can and should be synergistic. This means we can tackle the NHS’s £12 bn backlog maintenance bill, and confront serious issues like RAAC at the same time as we decarbonise.”


An ‘unprecedented investment in clean energy for the NHS’ The DHSC was currently awaiting the results of the latest PSDS round, but given the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero’s sector cap, the Department expected the Government would be investing at least an additional £200 m across the NHS over the next two years – bringing the total targeted NHS Net Zero capital investment to over £1 bn since 2019, ‘an unprecedented investment in clean energy for the NHS’. Lord Markham said: “It’s an investment that places the NHS on a firm footing as it moves forward towards its interim target of an 80% reduction in direct emissions by 2032. As noted earlier, the data does now show that the NHS is on track.”


toolkits to set and report against project- specific carbon targets, with NHP using the data reported under the Standard to monitor the carbon footprint of projects throughout the design, delivery, and construction phases. He explained: “All NHP projects will be tracked in their progress against delivering Net Zero by 2040, along with the rest of the NHS estate. “Given this,” he added, “I can reaffirm


the Government’s intention to have electrically-powered hospitals by 2024, not just in NHP, but across the wider NHS estate.” This approach would see the NHS move forward towards Net Zero alongside the national grid, ‘augmented by on-site renewable power where viable’. Lord Markham admitted that


‘addressing our energy objectives on the wider estate can be even more challenging in its way than building new hospitals’. He


While all of this was ‘fantastic news’, the Under Secretary of State said the NHS ‘must not underestimate the challenge ahead’. He said: “We will need to be innovative and open minded, and I continue to have promising discussions with parliamentary and ministerial colleagues on the potential of everything from deep geothermal energy for hospital sites, and district heating solutions, to innovative financing models that might further assist with measures like solar and LEDs. We all have a vested interest in ensuring that our NHS is sustainable, and able to get on delivering care in a way that will make current and future generations proud. I hope my comments today show that we’ve already taken great strides towards that goal.” He concluded: “With the right investment and the right collaboration, I’ve no doubt we will continue to do so as we move forward towards that 2040 target.”


Photo courtesy of The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust Clinical Illustration Department.


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