Work begins on solar panel field to power hospital

GOING GREEN: Castle Hill Hospital

Work is underway on a solar panel field to generate energy for Castle Hill Hospital.

Known as “ground mounted solar photovoltaic array”, the development will cover 7.7 hectares, including access roads, on land south of Castle Road, in Cottingham.

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust plans to erect almost 11,000 solar panels to generate a third of the total energy requirements of Castle Hill Hospital, meeting all of its daytime requirements in the summer.

Landscaping will be used to screen the development and protect wildlife, with information boards put up around the site to inform people living near the hospital about the environmental plans.

The plans have been approved by East Riding Council and construction work on the field is now underway, with the solar panels expected to be generating energy by the end of the year.

Marc Beaumont, Head of Sustainability at the trust, said: “We’re grateful to East Riding Council for a swift decision on our plans and we’ve already started the work because the time for action is now.

“We cannot afford to wait any longer to make radical changes to the way we run our organisation and this is a major step forward.”

The field is all part of “Zero Thirty,” the trust’s campaign to be a UK leader in tackling the NHS’s impact on climate change by achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Funding for the project has been possible after the trust received a £12.6m grant from the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy as part of its Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to support its new green agenda.