A Portslade school is to become the first in Brighton and Hove to have zero-carbon heating.
Brighton and Hove City Council said: “Peter Gladwin Primary School is set to become the first school in the city to be fully heated by low-carbon alternatives to gas and oil.
“An extensive building retrofit will take place over the summer holiday to replace the existing gas boilers, which are coming to the end of their useful life, with air-source heat pumps and upgraded radiators.
“The school will also get energy-efficiency measures such as upgraded LED lighting throughout which, together with the existing solar PV installation, will free up electrical capacity to help run the new heat pumps.
“While other schools in Brighton and Hove currently have some areas heated by low-carbon heat pumps, this will be the first in the council’s portfolio to have its gas boilers fully decommissioned.”
Councillor Tim Rowkins, the council’s cabinet member for net zero and environmental services, said: “This will be our first school to be heated with no fossil fuels.
“It’s a great example of a whole-building approach, with energy efficiency improvements, solar panels and heat pumps all working together as a single system to eliminate carbon emissions.
“Gas is the biggest source of carbon emissions in the city and non-domestic buildings like schools can be particularly energy-intensive to keep warm. Getting buildings like this off fossil fuels is an important step on the journey to net zero.”
The council added: “The project has been part-funded by a successful grant application to the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. Once commissioned, it is expected to reduce the school’s carbon emissions by around 19 tonnes per year.
“Edgar and Wood, a local mechanical engineering firm, based in Hove, has been appointed to carry out the work.
“The first phase to replace the heating system will be in place by the end of October, in time for the winter. The remainder of the works are scheduled for completion in March 2026.”
What about the carbon cost of scrapping the boilers and lighting, potentially with years of life left, to implement the new scheme and the carbon footprint of the creation of the new boilers and lights and their lifespans?
When companies and bodies wave the virtue signal flag that they have gone “net zero”, they have seldom factored in the carbon cost of the premature disposal of the existing equipment or buildings and the carbon cost of creating their replacement, including the projected lifespan, which is often considerably shorter and less repairable. A friend works for a company stripping out full lighting systems which are often only a few years old because of the LED craze and says you cannot even change light bulbs with them any more. You have to replace the whole light unit when the bulb goes.
The boilers are getting scrapped anyway as they are at the end of their useful life.
So why not replace them before maintenance costs increase and they become unreliable?
Keeping them when they aren’t efficient also generates emissions. Have you included those in your calculations?
“An extensive building retrofit will take place over the summer holiday to replace the existing gas boilers, which are coming to the end of their useful life”
It’s important to read carefully the article before saying things that make you sound silly, Elaine.
Just general observations which you have not blown out of the water by believing the standard lines about the need for the disposal of existing infrastructure, Benjamin. It will be interesting to see if this bomb of money being thrown at the school later leads to excuses for its closure as financially ‘unsustainable’. These measures take years to pay for themselves, which also depends on the lifecycle of their replacements.
“The project has been part-funded by a successful grant application to the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.”
The balance is coming from the Schools capital programme.
Capital funding does not come out of the schools day to day running expenses.
The new equipment will reduce the bills for energy thar the school pays releasing funds for other school expenses.
Again, It’s important to read carefully the article before saying things that make you sound silly, Elaine.
“The LED Craze”
Wait till you find out about the spinning jenny…
Guess they’ll be an academy next year then. Take the councils money and run. Seems to be a theme at the moment.
Elaine, where did you get your information and why didn’t you read the article?
For a start, LED light bulbs typically last anywhere from 10,000 hours to 80,000. Show me a traditional fluorescent bulb (which the school will almost certainly be replacing) which lasts even 1/10th of that?
The school’s running costs for the new LED units will also be a fraction of what they are currently spending.
Finally, LED units lasting only a couple of years before the whole fitting has to be replaced? Mmm… unlikely. Modern units (as posted above) should last for decades in a school.
But are they safe for their little eyes? My guess is that these lights will all be getting ripped out again within 5 years. https://news.sky.com/story/led-lights-can-cause-irreversible-damage-to-eyes-experts-warn-11721469
Interesting perspective, although it seems the ANSES report’s conclusions do not imply that everyday classroom LED lighting, typically “warm white”, causes irreversible eye damage and focuses on “cool white”, which is more what you get from things like smartphones, and more when you’re in a dark room, rather than during the day in a well-lit classroom.
It will be interesting to see if the ground source heat pumps have sufficient output to maintain adequate temperatures at the school during the winter months. There have been reports that this type of heat source often requires supplementing when outside temperatures are low. Time will tell.
It’s a fair point. Not one I’ve read into, I’ll do some research. One aspect I have done to support thermal regulation is heat-regulating window films. Keeps the place warmer in winter and cooler in summer.