SCOTTISH Water has built a new 1,000-panel solar farm near Brechin in Angus which can produce enough electricity for 200,000 washing machines and will now power a waste water treatment plant.
Fife, Angus, parts of East Lothian provide as much solar yield as south-east England, while Dundee is potentially doubly-blessed as a south facing, hilly city which could also benefit from reflected solar yield from the River Tay.
The waterworks company announced the green scheme to mark Climate Week 2016 as they push to make services resilient against climate change.
Chris Toop, general manager of Scottish Water’s energy programme, said: “Every day we treat over 840-million litres of waste water.
“We need around 440GWh of electricity annually around Scotland.
“Electricity can be expensive and that’s why Scottish Water has been reducing the amount of energy we need to purchase.
“Installing solar panels at Brechin is fantastic – it’s one of the ways to keep customer charges lower than the UK average.”
Scottish Water already has 24 solar farms, 26 sites with hydro-turbines and 18 wind turbine sites to power treatment works across the country
Increasing the use, and variety, of renewable power means £6 million in running costs can be saved every year as it slashes the electricity bought from National Grid.
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