greenspace scotland is delighted to be working with Locogen on the next stage of our innovative ParkPower project. The project aims to transform Scotland’s parks from expensive overheads into valuable green energy assets, driving Scotland towards a net-zero carbon future.

Locogen will be working with delivery partners, Bizcat and Town Rock Energy, to assess the green energy resource potential of five greenspaces across the Falkirk and North Lanarkshire council areas. This work is funded by a CARES grant from Local Energy Scotland and contributions from our partner Councils.

These spaces have unique potential in our communities, offering extensive land area together with natural resources such as water bodies and trees, close to our urban areas.  This makes them ideal sites for a range of renewable energy and low carbon heat solutions, where having adjacent ‘off-takers’ for power and, in particular, heat can dramatically improve the viability of such projects.

Locogen consultancy director, David Linsley-Hood, says:

“We’re really excited to be involved in the ParkPower project. Our greenspaces can be seen as islands of energy opportunities within seas of energy demand. Parks are expensive to run but ParkPower can transform them from being seen as an overhead to an asset.”

Technologies being considered will include solar PV, ground source and air source heat pumps, EV charging with solar canopies, micro hydro and district heating networks supplied from boreholes, flooded mines and water treatment works.

These greenspace local energy hubs will become a key component in a council's Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES), contribute to Local Energy Masterplanning and, ultimately, help Scotland reach its net-zero carbon target.

John Maslen, ParkPower Project Manager, comments:

“Our energy system transformation over coming years is going to have a direct impact on our urban landscapes. New infrastructure like substations, pipes, batteries, energy centres and EV charging stations will be required to reinforce our power networks, heat our buildings and charge our vehicles. For decades urban greenspaces have taken on a role as unassuming hosts for this infrastructure.  This role is set to become much higher profile.”

This project builds on greenspace scotland’s work with Ramboll and Refsol, supported as part of the Rethinking Parks programme, which has developed a data driven model for identifying potential ParkPower opportunities. Final outputs from this project will be published later in the year and a knowledge sharing event is planned for early 2020.