Energy bill slashed

Perth and Kinross Council is on course to slash its energy bill by £135,000, it has been revealed.

The total energy use from 2016/17 to 2017/18 has dropped by three per cent between April and December and elected members within the local authority is set to discuss the figures at a meeting next week.

The council has used a total of 38,189,134 kilowatt hours (kWh) across all its facilities in the time frame, over 1.1m less than the year before.

Of that figure, just under four per cent of energy use came from biomass. Around 13m kWh came from electricity, approximately 21.5m kWh on gas and 2m kWh on oil. The reduction was managed through a number of means, such as setting the maximum temperature in council buildings to 19° Celsius.

This allowed the local authority to spend £94,000 on “energy and water conservation projects” at Alyth Primary School, Perth High and Perth Academy, as well as install electric thermometers and water automatic meter readers.

These projects have helped the council meet their three per cent savings target, but have admitted bad weather between January and March could skew the figures.

The council plans to continue working towards reducing the figures by reducing the overall size of its property portfolio and increasing the use of low and zero carbon technologies.