Energy efficiency improvents at county care home

A project is improving energy efficiency for residents and staff at a Denbighshire care home

Denbighshire County Council’s Energy Team has worked to tackle energy efficiency and lower costs at Dolwen Care Home.

The team has managed a number of projects across Council owned buildings, to improve building energy efficiency and also reduce emissions and usage costs over the longer term.

This work is part of the Council’s drive to address the climate and nature emergency declared in 2019 and reduce its own carbon footprint.

The Council’s Energy team assessed the building to see what areas of energy use could be improved to increase efficiency.

Work carried out at Dolwen included the installation of 17kW solar panel system on the roof. Each Kilowatt generated and used by the building will save around 30 pence. Installing this capacity not only reduces substantial carbon it also reduces strain on the local grid infrastructure.

Over 100 building light fittings have been changed over to LED lighting to improve efficiency and drive down costs.

The team has also installed a new building management control system to allow for onsite heating to be more efficiently controlled once areas of the building reach the temperature required

Further works are ongoing with the boilers but once complete these areas of work are expected to result in savings annually of around 97,000kWh, almost 22tonnes of carbon emissions and over £14,000 in reduced energy costs, paying back what has been invested in a short space of time.

Martyn Smith, Property Energy and Carbon Manager, said: “This is an intricate project at the care home to bring different elements of technology together to help lower energy use and costs at the site. What we have installed will have a significant effect on reducing energy bills and improving the building environment for both the residents and staff.”

Cllr Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, added “We are committed to reducing our buildings carbon emissions and thank the Energy Team for their proactive work and the excellent engagement and support from residents and staff at Dolwen.”