Aug 31 2010
The roof of Clarence House palace occupied by the Prince of Wales will go carbon negative on installation of a 32 panel solar system over its south- east facing roof at the cost of £150,000.
The 180 year old Pall Mall-based construction, a grade II listed house, already has renewal energy installations meeting nearly 25% of its electric power needs. The currently cleared application from the Westminster City Council is expected to produce over 4000 kWh electricity per year which is enough to meet the energy requirements of an average UK home.
Clarence House palace
The City council availed the opinion of experts before granting such permission ensuring that the roof structure of the Grade II listed building will not be damaged during the solar power installation. The high-level parapet walls that surround the roof will make the installed solar invisible from the ground. The amount spent on installation is eligible to receive a feed-in-tariff of 41.3 pence per kilowatt hour (kWh) of energy produced in addition to savings on power bills. The power from the installed solar panels will add to the proposed UK 2020 renewable energy and carbon reduction objectives and to compliment the London Mayor’s idea of utilizing 25% of the total power used through renewable energy sources by the year 2025.
The Prince aims to make the palace carbon negative in the near future and plans to add more number of panels to the south- west roof of the building after achieving success on the current installation. The other clean energy efforts of the Prince include converting of his Jaguar and Land Rover cars to run on bio-diesel gained from used cooking oil of the palace and run his Aston Martin by utilizing bio-ethanol fuel prepared from excess British wine.