Local authorities are finding themselves between a rock and a hard place. The rock being COVID-19, the hard place being the drive to zero carbon – which for many has resulted in the declaration of a carbon emergency even before COVID had taken its toll. There are however a number of practical measures that can be taken to address this dilemma and with it, benefit the local community. Each are heavily data dependent.

Many local authorities have access to land and hence the potential for low-cost green power enabled by ‘solar to load' – essentially connecting a solar farm to a local load using a private wire.  Collating information on land and local load opens this door. Starting with high level location and size, before drilling down into more specific details such as slope, degree of shading and so forth. Electricity load profile is also key – whether this be the local authorities' own load, or that of local businesses. Load that aligns to sunlight provides the best potential.