Queenswood goes green with new solar panels

Queenswood Country Park & Arboretum has teamed up with local firm Caplor Energy to install solar panels to generate green energy.

New solar panels on the office at Queenswood Country Park

Solar PV electricity generating panels have been installed on the yard buildings, soon to be followed by a small solar thermal hot water system on the back of the Old Tannery building which houses the Visitor Centre and shop. This new technology will produce free electricity and hot water, reducing the site’s carbon footprint and also helping to reduce running costs.

This is the first major phase of exciting renewable technology plans for Queenswood led by managing partners New Leaf Sustainable Development and Herefordshire Wildlife Trust. Since taking on the site three years ago, the team have been making other ‘green’ improvements including water-saving taps, low energy hand-driers, composting and a free water bottle filler to discourage single-use plastic bottles. New recycling bins also arrived this month while the Visitor Centre now stocks a range of eco-friendly products.

Queenswood’s Sustainability lead, Wendy Cotton said: “We are grateful for support from Caplor Energy and hope to have exciting news about further improvements for the site very soon. We want to showcase low impact, sustainable technology and lifestyles at Queenswood to make us as ‘green’ a site as possible while continuing to offer better facilities for visitors.

We’ve been lucky to have all of these improvements externally funded or supported and ultimately, the solar upgrades will help to keep running costs down on site too, so we can continue to invest in other areas such as the woodland playground.”

Gareth Williams, MD at Caplor energy says: “we are very proud to have supported numerous local community based projects over the years.  Queenswood project is hugely inspiring and such an asset to the county, we are very pleased to be working with the team on their renewable journey.”

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