As a band entertains a crowd of residents of Deerhurst Care Home with cheerful seafaring tunes, they are not the only source of positive energy at the building. Above them, workers from the Joju Solar team fix the final solar panels on a new community-owned rooftop solar installation – 226 panels which will provide over 100 kWp of power.
Deerhurst is an award-winning facility, providing the highest levels of nursing and dementia care for its 66 live-in residents and ten day-care residents. Care of this kind is extremely energy intensive, with a TV and nurse call system in each room, and in the building lifts, charging for laptops and other equipment. All power from the panels will help run the building, providing bill savings of around £9,200 per year, any excess will be exported to the grid. The installation will provide an estimated carbon saving of 17.4 tonnes per year.
As well as nursing, Deerhurst also provides entertainment for residents like different musical performances, an art club, toddler group and many other events.
“No two days are the same. There might be a poorly resident, rostering to do, speaking to relatives – it never gets boring,” site manager Lesley Hobbs said. “I didn’t know about community energy until BEC started work here,” Lesley added. “I didn’t know that the solar panels were benefiting the community. It’s great that we’re having things that are going to improve the environment too.”
This project is the first of a partnership between BEC and Brunelcare in Bristol, with three more rooftop solar arrays planned on Brunelcare buildings. The four sites should have a combined 543 kWp. The projects are part of Bristol Energy Cooperative’s South West Local Solar Scheme, which aims to install 2 megawatts of rooftop solar capacity across the West of England by 2025. The scheme is funded through a £500,000 grant from the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority’s Green Recovery Fund.
