21st March 2025
Great British Energy, a company created by the government, is to invest £200m putting solar panels onto the rooves of 200 NHS sites and 200 schools in England. A further £9.3 million is being made available for programmes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The aim is to cut costs and carbon and make the NHS and schools less dependent on the uncertain energy market. The programme is expected to save £400m over the lifetime of the panels (30 years), and the savings will be invested in the NHS and education. The NHS spends an estimated £1.4 billion a year on energy, a figure that has more than doubled since 2019.
The programme is expected to last two years, and the first panels should be on NHS sites and schools by the end of summer 2025. The programme, which will also have an educational component, will concentrate on schools in deprived areas, particularly in the North East, the North West, and the West Midlands.
Dr Mark Harber, Royal College of Physicians special adviser on healthcare sustainability and climate change, said: “The RCP welcomes the government’s investment in solar panels for 200 NHS sites across England. Today’s announcement is a positive step in NHS England’s journey to reach net zero by 2040. Despite the savings of many sustainability initiatives, it can be difficult for trusts to prioritise these investments when budgets are so tight. We hope to see government funded solar panels expanded.”
The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change reported last year that in January 2023 on average NHS organisations consumed 75% of their energy from fossil fuels. It called on the government to provide sufficient capital investment to decarbonise the NHS estate through efforts such as the installation of rooftop solar panels and heat pumps, and upgrading NHS buildings to energy efficiency standards
Chris Gormley, NHS England chief sustainability officer said that “Just five years ago, NHS on-site renewable energy production was a modest 5700 MWh. Today, that number has tripled, equivalent to the energy required to power around 7000 homes for a year, and thanks to this new funding, we’re set to expand solar generation by over 300% across the NHS.”
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Officer for Climate Change, Dr Helena Clements, said: “We very much welcome these plans to fund solar projects in the NHS and schools. This announcement places the health crisis alongside climate crisis and focuses the gaze on the impact of the climate crisis on children.
“It’s clear that installing solar panels on schools and hospitals will also offer vital cost-saving opportunities to re-invest desperately needed funds into public health services. We are particularly pleased to see the Government specifically targeting areas with the highest levels of deprivation. Deprived communities often contribute least to climate change emissions but suffer disproportionately from its impacts.
“Climate change poses an existential threat to the health and wellbeing of children and young people. Children are among the most vulnerable to these resulting health risks and will be exposed to the health consequences for longer. Measures such today’s announcement are a great first step, but for the Government to continue to invest in the healthiest generation of children, much more work must be made to move away from fossil fuels and direct investment into renewables.”
Currently only 10% of hospitals and a fifth of schools have solar panels, but Hull University Teaching Hospital has 11,000 solar panels which saved it around £250,000 a month last summer. The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust has developed a solar farm that is expected to power the entire hospital for around 288 days a year and save around £15-20 million over the next two decades.
The Greener NHS Programme has already identified 196 NHS sites that will have the panels installed and will provide value for money. They will certainly achieve payback within 15 years, but depending on what happens with energy prices it could be 5-7 years.
The company GB Energy has a mission “to power Britain with clean, secure, home-grown energy and to become a global leader in clean energy.” This is GB Energy’s first project, and its chair Juergen Maier said: “By partnering with the public sector as we scale up the company, this will help us make an immediate impact as we work to roll out clean, homegrown energy projects, crowd in investment and create job opportunities across the country.” At a briefing Maier said that this was a beginning of more not a one-off. The current programme will go ahead regardless of the forthcoming government spending review, but future funding will depend on the outcome of the review.
As part of the programme there will also be funding of £12m for local clean energy projects, including from solar panels, onshore wind, and hydropower in rivers. The aim is also to find ways to use locally the power from schools when they are not open. There are, however, around 100 community projects that are currently stalled because of lack of funding.