Leisure centres power their way to climate change

The installation of £2.8 million worth of green energy measures at leisure centres across the Babergh and Mid Suffolk council areas to provide them with renewable energy and slashing CO2 emissions have reached the half way mark.

Works have completed this week to install a mixture of both solar PV panels and an air source heat pump, at the leisure centres and depot in Wenham, in line with their climate change ambitions.

The council-owned sites and measures include:

• Mid Suffolk Leisure Centre, Stowmarket (500 solar panels generating 195 kW as well as an air source heat pump and air handling unit);
• Stradbroke Swimming Pool and Fitness Centre (104 solar panels generating 40.6 kW);
• Hadleigh Pool and Leisure (380 solar panels generating 148.2 kW);
• Kingfisher Leisure Centre, Sudbury (294 solar panels generating 111.7 kW);
• Wenham Depot (56 solar panels generating 21.8kW).

The changes, carried out by CorEnergy, enable the centres to reduce their demand on the energy grid and begin to transition away from fossil-fuelled heating systems, by powering them with renewables.

They are expected to save 269.9 tonnes of CO2e per year – a 5.6% reduction in the councils’ annual carbon emissions – as well as reduce the total amount of energy needed to run the centres.

Works were made possible thanks to £1.4m in funding from the government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, which supports capital energy efficiency and heat decarbonisation projects within public sector non-domestic buildings.
The councils also received a £25k government Low Carbon Skills Fund grant to carry out feasibility work to determine the most appropriate measures for each site.

Elisabeth Malvisi, cabinet member for climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable transport at Babergh District Council, said: “This is another major step and milestone towards achieving the actions set out in our Carbon Reduction Management Plan – helping to make Babergh greener and cleaner.
“Decarbonising some of our major assets like our leisure centres moves us one step closer to our ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030, while also supporting improved health and wellbeing for our communities.”

Jessica Fleming, cabinet member for environment at Mid Suffolk District Council, added: “We want to continue setting an example for our district when it comes to reducing carbon emissions – and this work is a vital step in that process.

“Our leisure centres are our second largest source of CO2e – so putting in place measures which use less energy and heat, and making them more self-sufficient is crucial if we’re to reach our carbon ambitions over coming years.”

The next £1.4m investment to install trial solar carport technology at two of the centres – providing further additional power to the centres, EV charging points and reduced emissions – is due to be completed in Spring 2022.

All the councils’ leisure centres were moved to certified green energy tariffs back in April 2021 – marking a further step in their Carbon Reduction Management Plan.