Andium consider energy farms for their housing sites

Andium consider energy farms for their housing sites

Mike Porter, Andium’s head of operations, said that recent improvements in photovoltaic technology were making energy from sunshine more cost-effective and discussions with Jersey Electricity were ongoing about developing future projects.

He said that, as well as insulating homes to save heating costs for tenants, Andium was looking at using its sites, as well as its own office building, for ‘green’ energy production.

‘The board are very keen for us to look at our green credentials and we are looking at a number of ways to do this,’ he said. ‘Certainly from a social and affordable-homes perspective, heating costs are expensive and fuel poverty is a concern, so we always over-insulate our homes.

‘We are looking at photovoltaic cells and we are speaking with Jersey Electricity to look at opportunities to work together on the possibility of energy farming. We have a lot of homes and a lot of roof areas where we could do this. This won’t work on every home but it may on some of our larger sites and we will look at this.’

He added that Andium would consider selling energy from the farms back to the grid to generate extra revenue to invest in its property portfolio and work.

Other solar-farm projects in Jersey include the placement of panels on the La Collette power plant’s roof and at Woodside Farm. There are also proposals for the International Finance Centre.

Mr Porter said that there were already plans in place to put solar panels on the roof of Andium’s own offices in Don Street. ‘The cost of photovoltaics has been higher historically and the pay-backs have been longer but it is much more improved these days and we think the opportunities are becoming a lot better,’ he said.

‘What we are going to do in the office is trial the system on our roof to see how it would work in an office environment.

‘We have just engaged with the contractor and this will happen in the next few months, hopefully putting it in place for the summer.

‘Ultimately what this will do is allow us to reduce our energy usage here, trial the system and engage with the payback we can get.’

He added that another ‘green initiative’ Andium was considering was the use of car clubs, where tenants on an estate share designated electric vehicles.

‘We have looked at a number of schemes around London and car clubs are very popular over there,’ he said.

‘You see an increased provision for cycling on those sites, where car parking spaces have been given up. We haven’t carried out any consultation work at this stage but it is something we are looking at.’

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