A Wiltshire community energy organisation is crowdfunding half a million pounds to buy more than 1,000 solar panels for a school in Rowde.
Wiltshire Wildlife Community Energy (WWCE) has already invested more than £120,000 in the project at Silverwood – a special school for children and young people aged four to 19 – and is now appealing to the public.
The solar panels will generate green electricity to run the school, with surplus power exported to the local grid. The project will also create a ring-fenced annual income of £5,000 through WWCE’s charitable community fund, administered by Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, that will be used by Silverwood to deliver biodiversity and environmental education initiatives.
Julian Barlow, chair of WWCE and trustee of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust (WWT), said: “This is a really exciting project, working with such an important educational asset in Wiltshire alongside WWT.
“This scheme will generate funding for initiatives which support nature’s recovery while enriching the education and wellbeing of the students at Silverwood School. By investing in this opportunity, local people can help us to achieve our key aims of restoring wildlife as well as reducing carbon in Wiltshire, a fantastic legacy for us and the Silverwood School community.”
Silverwood has undergone a period of major redevelopment over the last couple of years, with Wiltshire Council pumping £38m into a new net-zero building that will be a state-of-the-art centre for SEND education, health, care, and training.
Sean McKeown, executive headteacher at Silverwood School, added: “Through this partnership with WWCE and with the support of WWT members and other stakeholders, we’ll receive a supply of clean solar electricity from the panels installed on our fantastic new centre for SEND education, benefiting from long-term agreements which protect us from future energy market volatility.
“In addition, the project will generate funds for ecological initiatives which enhance our educational offering and will be delivered with our project partners – I hope that those who are in a position to support the project get behind it.”