A Greener Palace

A modern heating system is expected to cut Buckingham Palace’s carbon footprint by 40 percent. As part of the palace overhaul, however, the Reservicing Programme also indicated ways to make the palace greener, including solar panels and an anaerobic digester.

• Solar PV: Solar panels could be installed on inconspicuous flat areas of the roof that would render them invisible from the ground or from principal rooms in the palace.

“Although the energy that could initially be provided from this source is less than 5 percent of the current building demand,” the report states, “this could increase to 10 percent over time as power consumption reduces and as the carbon content in grid electricity is lowered, in accordance with Government legislation.”

• Anaerobic Digestion Unit: This option generates biogas from food and other organic waste. The gas produced is then used to fuel the heating system, but would be unlikely to create sufficient energy to supply more than 5 percent of the palace’s energy needs. But the unit  would reduce the existing cost of waste removal from the palace. 

• Alternative Power Supplies: The Reservicing Programme also identified solar thermal panels, ground source heat pumps, electrical heating and fuel cells as possible heating and power supplies in the future and would be considered as technology develops.