The London Borough of Barnet secured Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) funding (PSDS1 and PSDS3) from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to fund heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures in public buildings, including offices, schools, libraries and community services, with a focus on heat pumps.
The challenge
The London Borough of Barnet secured Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) funding (PSDS1 and PSDS3) from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to fund heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures in public buildings, including offices, schools, libraries and community services, with a focus on heat pumps. A key challenge installing energy efficiency measures, such as heat pumps and solar panels, is the additional electricity demand on local infrastructure. A further challenge was meeting the funding timescales, where measures had to be delivered within one year.
The solution
Barnet Council worked with a contractor sourced using the GLA’s ‘RE:Fit Accelerator - workspace’ framework to install 10 heat pumps across six sites for PSDS1. The majority of installations were relatively small heat pumps, around the size of an air conditioning unit, in buildings including libraries and a Family Services facility. The council also installed four large heat pumps at their Colindale headquarter office. The PSDS1 focus was heat pumps but this can also be complemented beneficially by solar panels and LEDs, to offset the increased electricity consumption from heating with improved efficiency.
Barnet Council put out a call to community schools who met PSDS3 grant criteria (having a faulty boiler or one that was at least 15 years old) for their interest. Schools could be challenging to engage and secure buy-in due to having their own governance structure. The council found high-level early engagement worked well and in coordination with the council’s Education Director. Articulating the potential carbon and energy bill savings, was incentivising for schools, with all but one school choosing to proceed with the heat pump installations. The council found that public stakeholders like library managers were generally accommodating and positive about the installation, especially being incentivised with being able to have cheaper energy bills.
The impact
The grant funded projects have delivered energy, financial and carbon savings. PSDS1 has an estimated annual saving of 287 tonnes of carbon emissions and PSDS3 circa 750 tonnes. For financial savings, as savings net off maintenance costs, PSDS1 reflected £33,000 and PSDS3 £89,000 per annum.
Barnet Council found that working with an expert contractor was crucial to enable the project to run smoothly. In response to the demanding funding timescale of one year, they utilised weekly updates from the contractor. There were unexpected events, such as members of the public climbing on the heat pumps which could have damaged the expensive equipment, the contractors were largely able to react quickly and provide repairs and maintenance, including fencing the heat pump off.
Barnet council also found that limiting consultation prior to the beginning of the project, to check for objections rather than consult on the solution or approach, was effective. The council first secured the funding and were led by the experts through the installation in advance of consultation. At this stage, stakeholders were informed what had been done, how much carbon would be saved and what had been learnt.
Lessons learned
The PSDS projects gave Barnet the opportunity to try installations for the first time and to get comfortable with them, it was a good learning process albeit within a challenging funding context.
- Establish a positive long-term relationship with a reputable contractor. The GLA provided a pool of contractors from which the council was able to procure a successful contractor. The council developed a long-term relationship with them and established a ‘savings guaranteed’ approach - the contractor would have to revisit the work such as fix or install extra measures at their own costs to improve efficiency to the pre-agreed level of savings for the building. There is also benefit with one contractor designing and delivering the decarbonisation measures.
- Establish a good understanding of the local infrastructure and engage with providers. Barnet Council found themselves impacted by many Local Authorities putting in Heat Pump applications and adding demands to the network. The Colindale site fortunately fell within an Opportunity Area and thus had recent upgrades; however, the local electricity network could not accommodate additional demand at other sites. This can lead to the council having to put money into the district network and this is de-incentivising as the drive is to put funding to the technology not the infrastructure. It also delays the project’s delivery of beneficial impacts. Barnet Council are liaising with UK Power Networks (UKPN) to influence and understand how and when they will be investing in the network, so there are not delays in turning on new heat pumps and PSDS3 and its larger sites can be progressed.