Hundreds of Cornwall Council-owned homes will save nearly £500 on energy bills following council’s solar panel project.

As part of the government’s ‘Getting Building Fund’, Cornwall Council and Cornwall Housing have installed solar panels at 600 homes across the county in a bid to lower energy bills and take a step toward’s the government’s Net Zero ambitions.

Homes part of this scheme can expect to see a £495 reduction in their energy bills on average and homes in Bodmin, Liskeard, Bude, Wadebridge and Saltash are already exceeding the council’s targets in their Net Zero program.

Councillor Olly Monk, Cornwall’s portfolio holder for housing, said: “We are committed to improving energy efficiency and reducing the carbon emissions of our homes and have already installed energy-saving improvements to more than 600 properties in Cornwall.  The first homes in Cornwall to undergo a series of whole house retrofit improvements to make them warmer, greener and cost less to run are also nearing completion.”

Since 2020, the council has been part of a While House Retrofit Innovation pilot project funded by BEIS to install energy-saving measures in 83 homes in Cornwall.

Cllr. Olly Monk continued: “The past two years have been extremely challenging for the building sector and BEIS recognises that all commissioned whole house retrofit pilot projects nationally faced similar challenges. We apologise to our Cornwall Housing tenants who were due to have work completed on their homes under these pilot projects. We have identified their homes as needing energy efficiency improvements and we are now carrying out a detailed review of all our housing so that we can bid for alternative government funding to enable us to improve the energy efficiency of Cornwall Housing homes.”