Nottingham City Council’s LED lighting upgrade at Wollaton Hall won the Clean Energy Awards in the Best Commercial Energy Project Category.
Wollaton Hall is one of the first heritage buildings in the country to modernise its lighting, although far cheaper to run and better for the environment LED lighting has not been popular for such buildings due to the desire to preserve the traditional character of heritage sites. The lighting scheme in the hall uses the very latest technology available for LED lights which ensured the Hall retained its heritage atmosphere.
After a successful pilot the lighting upgrade has been rolled out to Nottingham City Council’s other heritage sites, Newstead Abbey and Nottingham Castle. Nottingham’s heritage buildings set an example to other similar sites across the UK as they too seek to lower operating costs and improve their environmental footprint.
The Clean Energy Awards recognise innovation and best practice in the field of renewable and clean energy. The competition is high as the awards attract many nominations from some of UK’s the biggest and most successful businesses in this sector.
Councillor Alan Clark, Portfolio Holder for Energy and Sustainability, said:
“Winning this award has shown that councils can hold their own and be leaders in the clean energy sector – a sector which is vital to the long term sustainability of the country and can often be dominated by large commercial businesses.
“Local authorities are high energy consumers and at Nottingham City Council we have a programme of work to ensure that we have a more sustainable approach to our consumption, generating green energy where we can and using the latest technology to reduce our energy demand.”