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Hear more about Dorset Council’s buildings and assets and the role they have to play in tackling the climate emergency in the video below from our Technical Services Manager for Assets and Property.
Carbon emissions from Dorset’s buildings currently account for about 60% of the county’s footprint, with around 1 million tonnes of CO2e emitted every year to heat and power Dorset’s residential, commercial and public-sector properties.
To reach national carbon-reduction targets these emissions will need to be eliminated and all energy used to maintain a comfortable indoor environment will need to be generated from renewable sources.
This will require a significant switch away from existing gas and oil central heating systems (which currently make up 82% of all Dorset’s domestic heating systems) to heat pumps, biomass, or hydrogen (when available). As well as substantial improvements to the energy efficiency of buildings to reduce overall energy demand.
To achieve this in Dorset a huge retrofit programme will be needed to address all of the county’s building stock, on top of a sizeable increase in renewable energy generation to meet residual the demand.
The high proportion of properties in Dorset connected to mains gas will pose a particular challenge, and decisions on whether to wait for developing hydrogen technologies or risk not meeting peak electricity demand through over adoption of heat-pumps will be very hard.
In addition, it is predicted that a further 18,000 houses will be built in Dorset in the next decade. These will need to be zero-carbon in design and build if they are to avoid adding to the county’s emissions further.
Dorset Council’s own buildings and assets currently account for around 70% of its footprint. In order to reach net zero the council will need to focus on improving energy efficiency, transitioning away from fossil fuels, and sourcing energy from renewable sources.
An asset review of the new unitary authority is currently underway, and an Asset Management Plan is in development.
Significant new building projects led by Dorset Council, including the Weymouth Peninsula and Building Better Lives programme, will provide an opportunity to create true net zero carbon homes and commercial properties. If this opportunity is not taken now, or in the near future, these developments will increase Dorset’s footprint further.
Dorset Council is extremely limited in the powers it has to achieve the aforementioned objectives. However, we do have control of our own current buildings and any future buildings that are constructed on our land. We are also able to influence and stimulate action with partners to facilitate change.
Read Dorset Council’s full discussion paper on Buildings
Dorset History Centre is the archives service and local studies library for Bournemouth, Christchurch, Dorset and Poole.
In 2019 the History Centre was awarded a grant of £75k from Dorset Council’s Low Carbon Dorset programme to help them become one of the first institutions of their kind to move to a largely passive air-handling system for its historic archives.
This project will facilitate near passive control by improving the air tightness of the structure of the building and by replacing existing air handling and heating systems with much simpler smaller scale systems better suited to minimal heating and humidity control.
It is expected that this project will save the centre around 90 tonnes of CO2 and £20k in energy costs each year, reducing their overall energy consumption by 55%.
Riversmeet is a community run leisure centre in Gillingham. And like most leisure centres requires a lot of energy to run. As a not-for-profit social enterprise the centre were keen to reduce their energy demand, and the associated costs, as much as possible. Leaving a much more environmentally friendly, sustainable community asset to be enjoyed by generations to come.
With help from Low Carbon Dorset, they completely redesigned their pool heating and ventilation to be much more energy efficient using a novel heat pump system. And installed LED lights and water and energy saving aerated shower heads. Combined these measures will save around 195 tonnes of CO2 a year and reduce their electricity costs by over 50%, saving around £48k a year.
This is only the second site in Dorset where this novel approach to energy management is being trialled, and hopefully these centres will demonstrate the savings that can be made both in carbon and in costs.