Solar panels cut school bills by £70,000 a year

Three East Yorkshire schools have reduced their energy bills after installing solar panels on their roofs.

Withernsea High School, Kingsway Primary and Marshlands Primary in Goole are expected to save a total of about £71,000 a year and cut CO2 emissions by 75,000kg annually.

The solar arrays were paid for by a £218,000 grant from the Department for Education.

Mark Crofts, headteacher at Withernsea High School, said staff, pupils and parents had welcomed the upgrade.

"At a time when school funding is more challenging than ever, this initiative is helping us to save money while driving something that is critically important for our children's futures," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council measures carbon emissions across all school and corporate sites as part of national targets to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Prof Mike Alder, founder and chair of UK Solar Alliance (UKSA), which campaigns for solar panels not to be built on farmland, said it supported rooftop solar, adding "putting panels on three schools is an excellent example".

"UKSA is not against solar only when it is in the wrong place and that is on good farmland, in such case food security is threatened," he said.

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