Hospital gets £713k to install solar panels

A hospital has been awarded £713,000 to fit more than 1000 rooftop solar panels to help it reduce its energy bills.

Kettering General Hospital (KGH) said it expected to save about £150,000 a year.

The funding is part of the first tranche of nationwide investment from Great British Energy, the Labour government's new state-owned energy company.

The solar panels are separate to KGH's planned new £57m energy centre, on which some enabling work started earlier this month. The investment is also separate to the planned rebuild of the hospital which is due to start between 2032 and 2034.

Rob Drabble, the hospital's director of estates and facilities, said: "We are delighted that our bid for additional solar panels has been agreed as part of national plans to enable more energy efficiency in the NHS."

The hospital estimated the panels would help save about £3m over their lifetime.

Nationally the solar panels programme is expected to deliver savings of around £8.6m a year, and up to £260m over the panels' lifetime across the NHS.

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