The target will be met by reducing energy use for electricity and heating by 20% and introducing ‘grow your own’ micro and small scale energy schemes using wood fuel, solar, heat pumps, hydro and wind.
The initiative will involve the trust’s entire in-hand building stock, which includes 300 historic houses, office buildings, visitor centres and 360 holiday cottages. It also plan to install more than 50 new wood fuel boilers into its mansions and larger buildings over the next five years.
National Trust said that the fuel will be sourced either from its own estates or from local suppliers, with replanting and maintenance benefiting woodland and wildlife habitats.
The trust already has more than 140 renewable energy systems in operation on sites across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with an installed capacity of 2.3MW heating and over 1MW of electricity generation. Twenty-seven of these initiatives have been installed with the help of its energy partner, npower, who have developed National Trust Green Energy.
Other ‘grow your own’ energy projects include solar panels on the roof of Grade I listed Dunster Castle in Somerset (funded by Barclays) and wood-pellet boilers at Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire (funded by the Trust’s energy partner npower), Scotney Castle in Kent (funded by the Big Lottery Fund Bio-Energy Capital Grants Scheme) and the wind turbine at Middlehouse Farm in Malham (funded by the Rural Development Programme).
Fiona Reynolds, director-general of National Trust, said: “We hope to contribute to the transition to more sustainable forms of energy generation by sharing experiences in growing your own energy with our 3.8 million members, 15 million visitors, local communities, policy makers and industry, and where possible, exporting electricity to other users.”
