A THOUSAND solar panels have been hooked up at a water treatment works serving Edinburgh and parts of West Lothian.
The green energy generators now provide a quarter of the energy needed at the Marchbank Water Treatment Works near Balerno, which serves 68,000 properties.
The development is one of a number of projects completed by Scottish Water Horizons, a subsidiary of the public utility, which supports the development of a sustainable technology in Scotland.
Chris Toop, General Manager for Scottish Water’s energy programme, said: “Electricity, as any consumer will know, can be expensive and that’s why Scottish Water has been working to reduce the amount of energy that we need to purchase.
“Installing solar panels is therefore fantastic news for our customers. It’s one of the ways in which we can help to keep our customer charges lower than the UK average, while aspiring to deliver ever better service.
“The solar panels at Marchbank Water Treatment Works make this vital facility serving Edinburgh and West Lothian increasingly self efficient."
Donald MacBrayne, Commercial Manager of Scottish Water Horizons, added: “This project is all part of our wider efforts to maximise the value of Scotland’s water resources and assets.
“Through use of technologies such as solar panels and hydro turbines in pipes, several of our treatment works can now generate all, and in some cases more, of the energy they need to operate.”
In the past two years, Scottish Water has doubled the amount of renewable energy which can be generated at treatment works and in water mains to over 50GWh.
There are now 27 hydro turbines which harness the natural flow of water through their pipes to produce electricity, as well as several wind and photovoltaic schemes.
Energy is also extracted from sewage sludge, while more than 4,000 smart meters have been installed to measure consumption and target opportunities to use less energy.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel