This year, we celebrate five years since opening the Larick Centre with a new, green-energy project. Using spare ground next to the main building, we have installed a mini solar farm. Two rows of ground solar panels will work alongside existing roof panels to help power the Centre’s facilities and reduce energy bills.
Being able to generate solar power means we can keep costs down and focus more of our limited resources on serving the community. Five years ago, we took delivery of our brand-new community centre. Since then, we’ve built up a brilliant programme of classes, activities and events open to everyone. We’ve also got a cafe, a campsite and a community fridge. It takes significant resources to deliver all these facilities and as a charity resources are limited, so the solar panels are essential.
In March our solar panels generated over 70% of the energy we used. They’re helping us reduce our carbon footprint, too – the Larick sits on beautiful coastline with nature all around, so being as ‘green’ possible is very important for us.
As well as saving on energy bills, we hope we will be able to export any excess energy into the national grid. The Larick’s mini solar farm was made possible due to funding from Fife Environment Trust, the Climate Adaptations Fund, Fife Council Locality Fund and individual supporters.
