Solar energy offers sunny outlook for Birmingham schools
Birmingham MP Roger Godsiff has presented a solar heating demonstrator kit to a school in his constituency to help students explore renewable energy technologies.
The sophisticated panel has been donated by leading green support services company eaga.
It will help teachers at Yardleys Science College in Birmingham give pupils a genuine hands-on learning experience of how renewable energy works and how it can tackle environmental challenges such as climate change.
Birmingham City Council recently staged the world’s first Climate Change festival, which highlighted how a successful response to environmental challenges can transform the quality of life for people working and living in the city. Following the festival’s lead, this portable demonstrator will aim to show how solar heating can be used both in public buildings, such as schools and offices, and at home.
Mr Godsiff, MP for Birmingham, Sparbrook and Small Heath, said: “I am delighted to support this enterprising initiative which will help to demonstrate the environmental and economic benefits of sustainable energy to students at Yardleys. The environmental challenges we face are stark, but there are also tremendously exciting career opportunities for the younger generation in the creation of a low carbon economy. By encouraging our school children to engage with these technologies we can help make Birmingham a true world-leader in developing clean energy for the future. “
Eaga, the UK’s largest provider of household energy efficiency solutions, developed the concept of demonstrator kits to explore zero or low carbon energy production in a safe and controlled environment and to get students excited in the technology.
It is currently delivering a partnership project in the North East to fund solar demonstrators in more than 200 middle and secondary schools.
Steve Caseley, managing director of eaga Renewables, said: “The interest in clean energy shown by students at Yardleys has been incredible. By working with the regional development agency in the North East we are currently giving thousands of school children in that region an insight into renewable technologies and have developed a website and key stage curriculum modules to help science teachers. Birmingham is already one of the most advanced cities in the UK in terms of embracing clean energy so I have no doubts a similar scheme would be hugely successful here.”
Laura Dodd from Yardleys School added: “Harnessing the power of green energy sources such as the sun or wind is clearly of huge interest to the younger generation. The solar panel demonstrator kit is excellent because it enhances the learning experience for them and makes it relevant and interactive. It can also help open their eyes to the opportunities of an increasingly low carbon economy.”
Fitted correctly, solar thermal panels can convert enough heat from the sun to provide up to 60% of a typical household’s hot water and cut annual C02 emissions by up to a tonne.
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Notes to Editors
- eaga plc is the UK’s largest residential energy efficiency provider. The company is a leader in the provision of innovative and sustainable services, products and solutions that address the environmental, social and energy efficiency objectives of Government and the private sector both nationally and internationally.
- Working in partnership with central and local government eaga is positioned at the heart of policy-making and front-end delivery of social and environmental improvement programmes. eaga operates across the UK and in the Republic of Ireland, India and Canada employing over 3,500 people.
- eaga was established in Newcastle in 1990 to lead government funded efforts to improve the living conditions of vulnerable people living in cold, damp and energy inefficient homes across England. Since its inception, eaga has made a positive difference to over 5 million disadvantaged households across the UK, by installing energy efficiency measures and central heating.
- eaga holds the contract to deliver the £1.5 billion Warm Front programme in England, the cornerstone of government's target to eliminate fuel poverty by installing energy efficiency measures in vulnerable homes by 2010. eaga also works with devolved nation governments to deliver similar schemes across the UK.
- As a co-owned business, eaga is one of only a handful of UK organisations where every employee with over a year’s service is entitled to a share in the success of the business. eaga’s commitment to co-ownership is an integral part of the values that define the ethos of the business and what it means to be an eaga employee.
- The Government has set targets for all local authorities to have all social rented homes meeting Decent Homes standards by 2010. This requires homes to be fit for habitation, in a reasonable state of repair, with reasonably modern facilities and services and a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.
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