£300,000 solar project completed in Helensburgh

Work on a £300,000 renewable energy project in Helensburgh which will help make the treatment of the town’s waste water less carbon intensive is now complete. 
 
The project has seen the installation of 384 ground-mounted solar panels at the town's Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW) which are expected to generate around 0.21 GWh of electricity annually – the same amount needed to boil over 930,000 kettles. 
 
This will meet 26% of the site’s energy needs, as well as saving 43 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. A proportion of the green energy produced by the scheme will also be sold back to the grid. 
 
The project has been led by Scottish Water Horizons, the publicly owned utility’s commercial subsidiary, and delivered by R&A Group. 
 
Scottish Water Horizons Project Manager Brian James said: “We’re delighted to have completed work on this solar project and to have added Helensburgh WWTW to our growing portfolio of sites which are powered in part by some form of renewable energy. 
 
“These projects are key to helping decarbonise the vital processes we all rely on to treat our water and waste water across Scotland.” 
 
Local Scottish Water Operations Team Leader George O’Sullivan added: “Treating waste water is an energy intensive process and it is great that a quarter of the power we use at Helensburgh WWTW is now made up of green energy. 
 
“The scheme helps to maximise the space available at the site and takes us that bit closer to our net zero targets.” 
 
In the past three years, Scottish Water has installed 14.4GWh of solar energy across its sites, in addition to 9.6GWh over the previous 12 years.