New energy system could reduce the council’s carbon footprint

Perth and Kinross Council has challenged five teams of experts to devise a new system for generating renewable energy that can be used by the local authority.

The council hopes the prototype smart energy design will generate power that can be transferred to different council sites for storage and use.

The main aim of the project is to power council buildings and reduce the local authority’s ongoing energy costs and carbon footprint as part of a Perth Smart Energy Network.

However, the council believe there could also be scope for the system to offer potential future possibilities such as tackling fuel poverty and reducing the energy demand and costs of social housing then passing these benefits on to vulnerable groups.

Councillor Angus Forbes, convener of the environment and infrastructure committee, said: “This project has the potential to completely overhaul the way in which we power our council estate, not only saving the council money on energy costs but also opening up a potential new income generation stream.

“Everyone has to start taking steps in order to reduce their carbon footprint and the council is no different; we have a lot of buildings within our estate, and it is important that we explore all options available to us to help tackle climate change.

“This is an incredibly exciting project for us; what we are trying to do hasn’t been done in this way before.

“We are aware of the scale and ambition of this project, but if we are successful we could develop an entirely new way for the public sector to move forward.”