Residents have the chance to help a special-needs academy slash its expensive gas bills by buying community shares in a fund for a heat pump.
South East London Community Energy (Selce) has launched the appeal for £70,000 to buy the 60kW pump for Charlton Park Academy.
If successful, the pump will power the hydrotherapy centre, which runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Selce has already installed a solar panel at the school, and electricity from that would power the pump.
Charlton Park Academy would save over £150,000 over the 20-year life of the pump, while it would reduce carbon emissions by the equivalent of 33 households’ electricity usage per year.
Residents can become members by investing a minimum of £250, receiving an annual interest payment of about 4 per cent. The scheme will generate income by licensing the heat pump to the academy, which will allow Selce to pay interest and set aside cash to return members’ original investments.
Any surplus will go to Selce’s community energy advice services. This is Selce’s 24th community financed installation, after 12 solar installations and 11 projects to convert lighting to LEDs.
Selce co-founder and chief executive Giovanna Speciale says: “This single intervention takes a special needs school from doing its bit on solar to a credible first step on the hardest, most underserved part of the UK’s decarbonisation challenge: heat.”
Residents can find out more at selce.org.uk/about-us/shares.
❤️ Get better local news on your phone. Add The Greenwich Wire as a preferred source on Google.
📩 Follow The Greenwich Wire on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn or Threads. You can also sign up for WhatsApp alerts – or subscribe to our emails through the blue box above.