QUICK QUOTE

Contact Us

Aerial view of a school with solar on the roof in North Lincolnshire
July 25, 2024 In

Solar schools and community buildings in North Lincolnshire

 

Project Highlights

  • 14 schools and colleges, a community hub, a museum and a community council building have solar installed so far, with more projects in the pipeline
  • 3,441 panels
  • 1,402.175 kWp
  • 1101618 kWh generated every year
  • 68 tonnes of CO2 saved per year
  • Won the prestigious Alan Clark Award for Community Energy (2024) and the ‘Supportive Local Authority’ Award at the Community Energy England Awards 2023.

 

Background

North Lincolnshire Community Energy (NLCE) installs community-funded solar panel systems on schools, colleges, and other community organisations, free of charge, by combining central government grants and community shares.

NLCE has been set up with support from a Town’s Fund grant to North Lincolnshire Council. Our  Joju Solar team carries out the installations, and helped develop a community match funded proposal through Energy 4 All.

 

The mission

What has North Lincolnshire set out to achieve through the installation of solar? Here are some of the key aims:

  • To drive the area forward to be net zero by 2030, reducing carbon emissions
  • To bring local people/organisations together to tackle climate change
  • To accelerate the availability of renewable energy in the area
  • To reduce energy costs for community/educational settings, enabling more funds to be prioritised on resources
  • To cut electricity purchased from the grid
  • To provide significant educational opportunities for schools, colleges and other sites that have solar installed.
  • To be run by local people and be the driving force for enabling a greener future.

 

The detail

At the 17 sites we’ve installed so far, we’ve largely used Canadian Solar panels for the installs. We’re testing Meyer Burger panels at John Leggott College for learning purposes, so the performance difference can be studied.

Inverters are Solis and the mounting systems depend on specific site conditions. They include Van der Valk, Esdec, Renusol, and Schletter.

 

Social value 

The solar electricity generation, cost reduction and CO2 reduction results are impressive, but installing solar in North Lincolnshire is about much more. There’s a genuine focus on the value of learning opportunities for community benefit.

NLCE, North Lincs Council and Joju have run a series of environmental workshops at schools and colleges, to speak with pupils about their solar installations, the benefit to schools and North Lincolnshire communities, and about the wider topic of sustainability. It’s exciting to see first-hand that the young people involved have a real understanding of the issues. They are keen to support the environment and are excited that the sun is powering the clean energy generated by the array on their school roofs.

The social benefit to schools and colleges and, by extension, to the North Lincolnshire community has been invaluable. As Ben Lawrance, Head Teacher of Frederick Gough School, put it:

“We are absolutely delighted to be part of the North Lincolnshire Community Energy   project. Not only will it save us money on our energy bills which will mean we can spend our savings on resources for the children in our school, we will also be contributing clean energy to the community to help ensure the planet is habitable for future generations of Frederick Gough pupils to come. The visual of the panels on our roof will also serve as a good reminder for school and wider community members of the need of us all to do our bit to protect the planet”

 

Events and awards

A series of free, interactive community events are also being run. These activities invite the wider community to discover more about the benefits of solar energy and to focus on sustainability topics, whilst experiencing family fun and positivity.

Our Joju team has also provided free energy advice in community hubs.

The project has always been about bringing the community together and breaking down barriers. The events run have done exactly this, with hundreds of people across North Lincolnshire taking part.

The project has won the Alan Clark Award for Community/Local Energy at the Solar and Storage Live awards 2024. It also won the ‘Supportive Local Authority’ Award on behalf of North Lincolnshire Council, at the Community Energy England Awards 2023.

 

A testimonial for Joju

Nicolle Mitchell (Communities Investment and Delivery Officer) and Ben Atkinson, (Sustainability Manager) at North Lincolnshire Council had this to say about how we work together:

“Joju Solar have been instrumental in supporting North Lincolnshire Community Energy (NLCE) to roll out rooftop solar on Schools and Community Buildings in Scunthorpe. Joju always go the extra mile. They have engaged in social value activities with the community of North Lincolnshire by offering school assemblies and workshops, supporting North Lincolnshire Council’s (NLC) Discover and Green Future’s events and providing energy advice for residents in the area at NLC’s Community Hubs.

Joju Solar are honest, professional and diligent. They ensure all work is delivered to a high standard and liaise with the Project Team to ensure installations are delivered on time and within budget.

Thank you to the support of the full Joju Solar team, you have made this project a great success.”

We’d like to thank Nicolle and Ben for their kind words. The project is a true reflection of what happens when local communities are inspired to join together to tackle climate change, and we can’t wait to support the North Lincolnshire teams to install even more.

 

Further information

Discover more about solar panels for schools

Find out about the opportunities created by community solar 

Check out more of our work with the public sector

November 22, 2022 In

Helping Hampshire schools go solar!

Hampshire County Council wanted to give as many schools as possible, the opportunity to have solar PV installed on their roofs, for free, as part of an ambitious programme to cut carbon emissions and running costs in public buildings across the county.

In response to the climate emergency and to contribute to net zero targets, schools would benefit from energy generated by the sun to become more energy efficient, and to cut their energy bills at the same time.

Funding the mission

The council received just over two million pounds of interest free funding from Salix Finance to facilitate this particular part of their programme, as part of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. Salix offers grant funding on behalf of the Government for energy efficiency and heat decarbonisation projects, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from public sector buildings.

With the mission to create as many ‘solar schools’ as possible, the council carried out a tender process. At the end of 2020, they selected Joju to explore the installation of solar PV on 120 buildings, including a mix of primary and secondary schools. Our team was delighted to get to work to help the council realise their ambition.

Surveys and site installations

We spent several months surveying all the sites ourselves, creating designs, costing each project, and also arranging structural surveys. We gradually ruled out a proportion of the suggested sites because following survey, some of the roofs weren’t suitable for solar panels.

We were left with a remaining 90 sites and the installations began in May 2021. We worked on these over a 12-month period.

One of the key elements of the project was that there was a real mix of buildings and system sizes. A benchmark for primary schools was a relatively small system of around 10kW, and a 50kW benchmark size was set for secondary schools. There were also some large school sites of 115 kW. Additionally, we returned to some of the sites to increase the size of the solar PV system installed.

Due to the volume of sites involved in the project, we also recruited additional support into our teams to help deliver solar to the schools as efficiently as possible.

Solar savings

The solar PV over the 90 schools totals 2.1 MW of installed capacity, with a predicted annual generation of 1800 MWh of green electricity across the portfolio.  This is also predicted to save the buildings a combined 450 tonnes of Co2 per annum.

On average, the schools are using 80-90% of the energy generated and expected savings for the smallest sites are over £1,000 a year. The largest schools are predicted to save over £15,000 a year. These estimated figures were pre-energy price increases, meaning that savings will be even greater currently.

A positive impact

Councillor Jan Warwick, Hampshire County Council’s Executive Member for Climate Change, said:

“We are putting climate change at the heart of all we do and in this case, delivering both carbon and financial savings for Hampshire’s schools… what is great about this programme in particular is how it is making a positive impact in hundreds of school communities and helping pupils to learn more about this vital issue.”

We second that! The reward for us is not only reducing carbon emissions, but also the learning that undoubtedly comes from the installation of solar on schools – and we’re proud to be part of it.

Discover more

Royal Holloway Charge Points
February 13, 2022 In

Going electric at Royal Holloway University

Royal Holloway, University of London, is a pioneering University, steeped in history, yet constantly adapting to the demands of modern higher education.

When it comes to environmental credentials, the University ranked as a top tier University in USwitch’s second annual study into UK universities’ commitment to being green.

As part of their Living Sustainably programme, University researchers also work with partners around the world to investigate the drivers of unsustainable activities. They respond by co-developing innovative solutions for all communities to use resources more sustainably, and to be part of healthy communities. So, when we were appointed to work with the University on its EV infrastructure, we were delighted.

Feasibility and install

After visiting the University and discussing requirements, we conducted a feasibility study to create the best possible EV charging solution for staff, students, fleet vehicles and visitors to site.

The project was funded by the University and after an initial four car parks in the original study, Royal Holloway made the decision to begin with one site. There was an excellent electrical supply to that car park already, which meant we could install four dual socket Alfens, all running at 22kW.

Collaboration

The University needed the installation to be complete for the start of the new September term last year, so we put everything in motion to complete our works in that timescale. More often than not, we carry out all electrical work ourselves but, in this instance, our installation team worked seamlessly with the University’s electrical contractor, overseen by our experienced project managers. Working collaboratively is always something we’re happy to do!

Looking to the future

Dr David Ashton, Deputy Principal (Operations) of Royal Holloway, has said that the University is

“committed to addressing climate change and working hard towards goals such as achieving net zero by 2035”

and it’s brilliant to be part of the sustainability story at Royal Holloway. We hope to install more EV charge points here in the years to come.

Discover more

Read more about our Public EV projects

Check out our work with Schools, Colleges and Universities

Read more about Joju Charging as a portal for Public Sector EV Infrastructure Procurement

S Georges' SPorts Centre, Scott Brown Rigg, Architects
April 7, 2021 In

St George’s College Iconic Solar Sports Hall

St George’s is an independent mixed Roman Catholic co-educational day school in Weybridge Surrey. The school have recently constructed a new Sports Hall for the school as their existing sports hall was only sized for 500 students (all boys).  The new sport hall now caters for over 1000 pupils (both boys and girls) over a wide range of sporting activities.

The new hall is a flagship architectural building, designed by Scott Brown Rigg Architects, with many unique design features that required careful integration of the solar PV.

The structure of the building is made from curved glulam columns and roof beams, which support a plywood deck.  Above the roof sites 150mm insulation, finished with a Sika Sarnafil single-ply roof membrane.  The roof is curved in two directions much like the Olympic Park velodrome, and also features diamond-shaped roof ventilation towers.

Careful Integration of Solar

As such, the design needed to account for the following sensitivities:

  1. As a high-end architectural project, aesthetics were paramount to the client.
  2. The installation mounting system needed to work with the curved surface of the roof.
  3. We needed to avoid shade from the ventilation towers.
  4. The chosen system needed to be lightweight so as not to compress the insulation, or led to puddling of water
  5. The system needed to be non-penetrative
  6. We needed to install sufficient solar PV to meet overall building CO2 targets.

The building carbon targets implied the building had a target of 32kWp of solar PV to generate 29,688kWh of electricity per year.  To meet this brief, we installed a system of 119 JA Solar 270W modules, connected to a single Solis 30kW inverter.

 

Sika SSM1 mounting system

Joju Solar are the solar energy partners of Sika Sarnafil who manufactured the roof membrane system.  Working closely with them and the main roofing contractors, Malone Roofing, we designed and delivered what we to believe to be a prime example of sensitive architectural integration of a commercial solar PV roof.

The chosen mounting system was the Sika Solar Mount SSM1, which offers several unique features, ideal for this project.  The mounting system consists of plastic triangular frames pitched at 15 degrees.  These frames use rubber fixing flaps, that sit over the frames which are then rubber-welded directly to the roof membrane.  Because the frames are bonded to the roof surface, the system is ballast-free, and therefore very lightweight.  This not only simplifies construction but helps from a structural engineering point of view, especially in case such as this where the span of the roof is large.  It also prevents compression of the insulation layer and puddling of water on the roof.

Uniquely, the mounting system and the roof membrane itself are covered under a single point warranty.  As Sam Rogan, Sika Sarnafil Technical Advisor explains: “The SikaSolar system offers a low profile panel with high output,  that is fully compatible with Sarnafil single ply roofing membranes”.  This avoids any potential conflict between the multiple contractors on-site, as there is a single holder of risk and responsibility.

Primarily designed for flat roofs, the SSM1 is limited to being installed on roofs of less than a 10-degree pitch.  We therefore restricted our array to those unshaded areas of the roof that met this design requirement.  The area chosen was such that optimisers were not required and the system could be strung on a single 30kW inverter.

As a further step to enhance the aesthetics of the installation, the DC cable routes were laid in channels cut into the insulation membrane, which were then covered with the main roofing membrane.  This removed the need for an unsightly cable tray running across the roof and preserved the clean aesthetics of the building.

 

(Images 1&3 courtesy of Scott Brown Rigg Architects)

Find Out More

  • Our PV design team is on hand to help you realise the solar part of any new build project, large or small
  • We have even integrated a bespoke solar PV array into the roof of Salisbury Cathedral
  • Solar schools like St George’s are a speciality of ours – find out more about the hundreds of solar schools we’ve already built
Oxford Brookes, Sunset, Solar PAnels, Salix Finance
February 2, 2021 In

A Hub of High Efficiency at Oxford Brookes University

Oxford Brookes is one of the UK’s leading modern universities with an international reputation for teaching innovation and excellence. They are also in the top tier of universities leading the way when it comes to limiting their effect on the environment*. Their 35% reduction in carbon emissions since 2005, already puts the university ahead of its 2025 target of a 34% reduction, but this hasn’t stopped Oxford Brookes wanting to push on and do more – to continue to reduce its environmental impact and create a student campus that truly supports sustainability, as well as inspiring students to significantly reduce wasted energy use and carbon emissions.

 

Funding and Fusion 21

When Oxford Brookes learned they could secure renawable energy project funding through Salix Finance (interest-free funding for the public sector to improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and lower energy bills), the university was keen to increase its existing solar PV capacity and looked into procurement routes to find the perfect solar PV partner.

They discovered Joju Solar through the Fusion 21 public sector procurement framework and after surveying the university site, we helped to identify five more suitable buildings for solar PV – designing and procuring the best possible system within Salix funding parameters. The project couldn’t cost more than £222 per tonne of carbon saved (over the lifetime of the project), with a project payback of 8 years.

 

A greater yield with SunPower

As Oxford Brookes University was committed to generating as much as possible in the available space, to “do more with less” and get the most value from existing building spaces, we used high efficiency SunPower modules on the Buckley Building, John Payne Building, Lloyd Building, Sinclair Building and the International Centre.

Although rare for a commercial solar panel installation project, these state-of-the-art panels gave Oxford Brookes greater output per square metre of roof space, adding just under 300kWp and doubling their solar PV capacity. From a cost perspective, this approach still worked within the Salix Finance funding model, so it was a winner all round!

Despite the installation being initially postponed due to Covid19, the 700 solar panels were installed in November 2020 and it was an absolute pleasure working with Oxford Brookes University to extend their visible commitment to a low carbon future by creating a high efficiency array – generating 224,912kWh per year, with a 57 tonnes CO2 saving.

 

Discover more

  • We love working in the education sector and Solar schools is one of our specialities.  We can deliver fully funded installations across your school or university estate, so do find out more about our solar for schools and education
  • Discover more about Solar PV and how we can help you.
  • SunPower modules are the state of the art – offering efficiencies of more than 23%.
Egni Coop, Graint Thomas Velodrome, Newport Councl, largest solar roof in Wales,
August 12, 2020 In

Egni Coop’s Welsh Community Solar Programme

Egni Coop and Joju Solar have developed and installed the most ambitious community solar scheme in Wales, including the largest single community solar rooftop at Newport’s Geraint Thomas velodrome. It’s quite a story – here’s how we did it.

READ MORE

University of Southampton, EV charge point, Avenue Campus
June 30, 2020 In

The University of Southampton EV Charging Pilot

Overall, the city of Southampton has been investing heavily in carbon reduction and air quality improvement through their transport strategy. Throughout the city, we have seen a large increase in fast and rapid electric vehicle (EV) charge points (CP) becoming available to the public.

Sustainability in the University

The University of Southampton has also followed this trajectory with their 2015-2020 travel plan. As part of this plan, the University is promoting more sustainable means of transport. The University track the number of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) through their parking permit database. An increase in the amount of EVs and PHEVs on record indicated a demand for charging services.  This led them to launch a pilot project whereby they installed ten electric vehicle charge points at four locations across their campuses.

The Pilot

Two years ago, it was made more expensive for a member of staff or visitor to purchase a permit with a vehicle with higher emissions (petrol or diesel). This was pursuant with making the permits cheaper for EV or PHEV owners. As the number of PHEV and EV owners increased, the University decided to launch a pilot to facilitate the need for charging these vehicles on site. The University decided to fully fund the charge points and procured them through the Central Southern Regional (CSR) Framework. Adam Tewksbury, Associate Director for Environment & Sustainability, had the following to say “[…] The CSR Framework has been really helpful because we are able to say these are the same charge points that you will see locally, which alleviates the concerns about different styles, types of charging points and operating systems, people who are thinking about getting an EV might have. The consistency helps the messaging.”

Multiple Pricing Tariffs

The pilot project saw ten electric vehicle charge points installed at four campus car parks. Four charge points were installed at their main visitor car park at Highfield campus. Two charge points per campus were also installed at Bolderwood, Avenue and Winchester. The charge points are available to all staff and visitors who have a permit to access the car parks. As well as this, the University has seven electric fleet vehicles which make up around one-quarter of all of the vehicles in the Estates Department. These fleet vehicles are able to access all of the charge points installed.

The University has applied differential pricing according to the different user types.  University of Southampton fleet vehicles aren’t charged for electricity usage on the charge points, whereas staff and visitors are charged at a rate of £0.20 per kWh. The fleet vehicles are able to do this through an approved fob which is set to free charging via the New Motion back-office system.

The charge points are being used

The University wanted to monitor the usage of the charge points over the course of a year to help inform their future sustainability strategy planning. This would also contribute to the need for future installations throughout the University. Straight away, the charge points were being used.  “Two EVs were charging after 24 hours of installing them which shows the latent demand was there,” said Adam. Two newsletters were released at six and 12 months, which stated how much the charge points had been used and how many people had accessed them. Over the course of the year, the charge points were accessed 765 times by 95 different people dispensing 8,500 kWh – enough to travel more than 25,000 miles in a Nissan Leaf.

The Future

The amount of usage from the charge points has led to the University of Southampton planning further installations, “Uptake has been good and steady, they’re a useful asset to have on-site because it gives a bit of assurance and supports in people’s thinking: if they make the switch to an EV, there is the infrastructure for charging available for them. The timing of putting them in was a bit of an experiment, but it’s paid off, and we’re building on it” added Adam. Four bays have been earmarked for electric vehicle charge points at another site, and the University are planning to move ahead with further installations before the end of the year.

 

Overall, the pilot has been a success, and the demand for EV and PHEV charging is definitely there and increasing for people visiting the University. One challenge the University thought that would occur is that they might not have installed enough charge points and an EV user may turn up to a fully stacked set of charge points at their main visitor car park (Highfield). To overcome this, they have an attendant on-site during hours of operation who will provide information for visitors about the alternative sites for charging.

commercial battery storage, sonnen, repower balcombe, sussex, Eco8
May 3, 2017 In

Commercial Battery Storage at Turners Hill School

Good things come in threes for this commercial battery storage system

Background

Repower Balcombe is a community energy group founded as a positive response to threats of fracking in the area.  The group have funded solar PV on 4 schools in the area, including this one at Turners Hill Primary which was installed by Joju in 2015.  With their community benefit fund from existing sites bearing fruit, they decided to set up a battery storage project to understand this new technology better.

Commercial Battery Storage

The challenge for Joju Solar was to design and specify a battery storage system that maximises the benefits to the host school.

The school is typical of a small commercial battery storage system, which has very different characterisitcs to domestic battery systems.  The electricity supply to the school is 3-phase, so we needed to install storage across all three phases.  With 3-phase batteries of this scale not available in the UK as present, we installed 3 separate battery systems, each dealing with the load and generation on that phase.  You can see the three individual storage units, manufactured by Sonnen, in the photos.  Technically the greatest challenge related to the battery’s monitoring – it needs to monitor the extent of import and export from the school and the generation from the solar PV.  The PV system was some 20 meters from the battery installation so we needed to run long monitoring cables as part of the works.

The system operates under a regime where excess solar generation is captured during the day, and used to run the school in the evenings and through the night.  We gathered half-hourly electricity demand data from the school, and undertook a comprehensive modelling exercise to determine the optimal battery size.  In order to meet the evening and night-time demand, we settled on a storage capacity of 4kWh per phase.

The graph (left) shows that we have sized the system almost perfectly. The purple line shows the energy stored in the battery.  The solar charges it up to full capacity in the morning, where it remains until early evening.  Once demand is no longer met by solar, the battery discharges to meet demand on site.  It’s empty again just a matter of minutes before the sun comes up and starts charging it again!  Electricity imported from the grid, shown in pale blue is virtually non-existent; the school is running on its own solar generated electricity.

The installation and the stats

The installation took place at Turners Hill School in Turners Hill village in Sussex.  Joju Solar installed 3 x Sonnen Eco 8 4kWh batteries in just 2 days at the site.

The system is meeting the school’s needs for electricity in the spring/summer/autumn months.  However, it should be noted that in winter there will not be sufficient surplus electricity to charge up the batteries and the system will remain dormant at this time.

For this reason, paybacks for this battery system are long, and in excess of the battery lifetime.  Repower Balcombe were able to fund this project as they already had surplus funds generated for good causes such as this (i.e. saving the school money)

However, do not despair!  Our modelling shows that there are other ways of operating commercial battery storage systems in commercial premises that does give paybacks shorter than the battery lifetime, especially with the good economics of the Tesla Powerwall2 battery.  If you’d like to see how this could work for you, then do get in touch with our batteries and smart grids team.

Further Reading

  • Read how we pioneered storage in the community by installing batteries for social housing tenants in Oxford
  • For larger sites than Turners Hill, the Powerwall 2 looks to be an excellent option, and installs very easily
  • Find our more about our work with community energy groups across the country
December 15, 2016 In

Green Oak leads the Way with LEDs

Green Oak school leads the way with LED installation

Background

All schools and teachers know that the environment in which children learn and work in is crucial to both their education and how they behave. Negative work spaces can create negative behaviour and limit a child’s opportunity to excel. Lighting plays a crucial role in creating a positive working environment and too many classrooms around the country still have inefficient lighting, issues with broken lights, flicker, and mismatched colours, which can all hamper the learning environment . Many schools are beginning to realise the potential for improving their classrooms through LED lighting, which is both aesthetically more pleasing but also creates light more conducive to learning. Green Oak Primary school is one such school who saw the potential in installing LED lighting to improve their school’s learning environments.

The Project

In Autumn 2016 Joju replaced 68 existing luminaires (light fittings). Dated and flickering batten fittings were replaced with sleek slimline LED panels that sit in the recessed ceiling. Rooms that originally had lights of different colour, which is unsightly to say the least, were all replaced with cool white LED lights. Flickering lights have been replaced with modern, instant-on lamps that have transformed the classrooms.

The Benefits

The LED installation at Green Oak will reduce energy bills by 5,600 kWh per year. We estimate that to be a saving of £611 per year (that’s about £10 for each fitting). Over the lifetime of the LEDS they will deliver over £12k of cost savings and when all benefitsare taken into account we expect a payback of four years. LEDs need replacing less often than fluorescent tubes, which offers significant maintenance saving. This will be especially true in the two-storey sports hall, where specialist access equipment is required every time a fluorescent tube fails.

What They Said

The Headteacher of Green Oak school, Miriam Morris said “Joju provided a fantastic service to Green Oak working at all times in a professional manner at the school. They installed the lights during half term, so it didn’t have any adverse impact on us in school. The job was completed efficiently and on time and the results are fantastic. The LED lighting has made a real positive difference already to the aesthetic and working environment of the classrooms where they have been installed. It has changed things so much that many of the staff thought that the school had been completely repainted when they came back after the week of holiday!”

The project at Green Oak was funded by grants raised by Wey Valley Solar Schools Energy Co-operative, a member of Joju’s long term community energy partner, Energy4All.” Project co-ordinator Rachael Hunter said “We know from past experience that working with Joju will always be a pleasure. The service and knowledge of the project manager was second to none and we always feel confident in Joju’s ability to complete a job to the highest spec.”

 

June 10, 2016 In

Orchard Field Community School

Orchard Field School meets it high demand within strict grid restrictions

Orchard Field Community School is a large primary school in Banbury, Oxfordshire and a member of the Low Carbon Hub Solar Schools portfolio. The installation was installed in Summer 2015.

Challenge

Orchard Field Community School is a large primary school with a very high energy demand.  The school’s roof along with being large also curves around in a crescent moon shape. This presented a challenge in terms of how to secure the panels to the roof. The lengths of rail which we normally used on gable roofs couldn’t be used.  This also presented a challenge in terms of how best to wire the solar PV modules to the inverters, as panels facing in slightly different directions have different outputs depending on the location of the sun.  Orchard Field was therefore a tricky set up.

The final challenge was also to limit the potential export to the national grid. Despite the high demand on site solar PV export was limited to 50kWp, meaning that we needed to find a way to prevent the PV system from generating 50kWp more than the demand on site at any point in time – a very likely occurrence over the summer holidays.

Benefits

On a clear spring day the solar PV system meets the total energy demand on site. During the Summer this happens  more and more. Whatever the weather this system makes a significant reduction to the School’s electricity bills. And like all our installations in schools it has become a valuable educational tool for the pupils.

Why they chose Joju?

Joju have been one of the preferred suppliers of the Low Carbon Hub for several years and Orchard Croft is just another fantastic example of us working with them.

Headmistress Dawn Shilston said “As a school we feel incredibly proud to be doing our utmost to reduce our Carbon Footprint. It is incredible to consider we are the largest Solar Roof Project on a Primary School in Oxfordshire with our school roof hosting 384 solar panels. It has been an invaluable exercise in educating our pupils for the future on the importance for us all to explore the possibility of using renewable resources for our energy.”

Read More about the installation and all its savings here at Low Carbon Hub