Our customer, West Sussex County Council, is responsible for delivering essential public services that residents across the county rely on. Managing schools, youth services and supporting older and vulnerable adults, as well as maintaining public transport, providing emergency response and more.
In a recent interview, we spoke to Steven Fall, Energy Manager at the Council on their plans for net zero, the technologies they have invested in across the county and their exciting solar payback project with local schools.
TEAM: What strategies has West Sussex County Council implemented to move towards carbon neutrality and energy efficiency?
Steven Fall: We set our carbon neutral target back in 2019, aiming to achieve it by 2030. This commitment is backed by a comprehensive Climate Change Strategy, aligned with our five-year Council Plan (2021–2026). Supporting this are the Climate Action Adaptation Plan (CAAP) and our Energy Strategy, which together guide our efforts across buildings, transport, procurement, and community engagement.
The CAAP sets out 20 priority actions that could deliver the greatest impact in carbon emissions reduction across the county between 2024 and 2027.
TEAM: Is offsetting part of your carbon neutral strategy?
Steven: Yes, but only as a final step. Our priority is reducing direct emissions through energy efficiency and operational changes, before considering other options such as offsetting.
TEAM: What challenges have you faced in reaching your 2030 target?
Steven: As is the case with many large organisations, funding can be a major challenge. The cost of embarking on a largescale estate decarbonisation programme can be extremely prohibitive and additional funding isn’t easy to come by in the public sector. However, we have good support for the work we do, and we’ve been able to secure grants like the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS), but many of these opportunities have unfortunately ended. We’ve also developed our own internal funding models similar to the interest-free loan scheme previously available from Salix Finance. This has allowed schools to continue accessing energy efficiency upgrades without upfront costs.
Like many parts of the country, we also face challenges in connecting assets to the electricity grid due to long timescales from the local Distribution Network Operators (DNOs). In West Sussex, we work with two DNOs, and there’s often a huge queue for grid connection applications, especially for larger projects like solar farms or battery storage. In some cases, this means timescales can stretch up to a decade or more.
Other challenges include managing a large and varied estate in West Sussex, comprising a broad range of building types, some of which date back to the 17th century. This poses a major challenge for us when trying to modernise these buildings and make them more sustainable and energy efficient. A lot of the buildings across our estate play vital roles, such as social care sites or fire stations, and it can be difficult to decarbonise buildings that are needed by the local community as they are required to continue their operations.
TEAM: Does energy efficiency play an important role in this transition?
Steven: Absolutely, as an energy manager, I always say you don’t pay for what you don’t use. The first step is to reduce energy consumption and in turn that reduces our carbon emissions.
TEAM: What technologies have been most effective?
Steven: We’ve focused on several key initiatives to advance sustainability and energy efficiency. This includes the deployment of solar PV, with two large solar farms and more than 80 rooftop systems installed in schools. LED lighting has been implemented extensively throughout buildings and is also being implemented for our street lighting to reduce energy consumption. Air source heat pumps have been installed using a ‘fabric-first’ approach to maximise efficiency. Additionally, battery storage solutions have been introduced, including a 4MW grid-connected battery and new behind-the-meter systems planned to support energy resilience and flexibility.
TEAM: Can you share some success stories?
Steven: Our solar farms developed on former landfill sites generate significant revenue and carbon savings. Together these sites generate around 13 GWh of renewable energy each year which is sold to the grid. This provides an additional revenue stream that is used to support council operations which, in turn, bolsters the overall business case for investing in renewable energy projects in the first place.
We have our own solar PV scheme for schools across the county. We fund and install the systems, and the schools sign up to a long-term agreement to repay through the renewable energy that they consume on-site. They receive the energy at a discounted rate in comparison to the grid. For some participating schools this has meant they have saved tens of thousands of pounds compared to if they had used the same amount of electricity from the grid. We have about 80 schools with solar rooftop PV systems. So that has been a huge win and will continue to save the schools a lot of money off their electricity bills.
We’ve also decarbonised 14 high-consuming corporate buildings using almost £1.5 million in Salix Finance PSDS grant funding by implementing heat pumps, building fabric improvements such as insulation, solar thermal, and solar PV. We’re also electrifying our fleet and establishing a comprehensive public EV charging network across the county through our contract with Connected Kerb. We are focusing on areas where residents rely on public charging, for example, because they don’t have off-road parking at home.
TEAM: How do you balance financial constraints with long-term sustainability goals?
Steven: We use whole lifecycle appraisals for every project, considering both carbon and financial impacts. Maintenance costs, especially for newer technologies, are factored into revenue budgets. We also ensure savings from energy efficiency are captured and reinvested.
TEAM: What partnerships have supported your journey?
Steven: Key collaborators have played a vital role in our progress. Laser Energy has supported us with procurement, power purchase agreements (PPAs), and demand-side response strategies. Atkins Réalis has served as our multidisciplinary consultant, helping to deliver projects effectively. We have also worked hard to build strong relationships with the DNOs, attending their connection surgeries and having early conversations about our plans for upcoming renewable energy projects.
TEAM’s Sigma energy management software provides our energy data platform, which has been absolutely central to our success.
TEAM: What role has Sigma energy management software played in your energy management?
Steven: The Sigma energy monitoring and targeting software is the beating heart of our Energy Services team. We’ve used it for many years, and it’s become an essential tool for our carbon reporting, energy consumption tracking, financial appraisals and it supports us with vital grant applications.
We’re intensive users of Sigma energy management software and a lot of different people in the business rely on the data we hold in there. For example, we track daily generation data from our solar PV systems and convert it into carbon savings, which are reported quarterly to our sustainability team and senior leadership.
Sigma energy management software also played a crucial role in our successful PSDS grant application. We had a very short timescale to prepare our submission, and having all the necessary data in Sigma allowed us to respond quickly and accurately.
We’re now exploring the use of Power BI to create live dashboards and streamline reporting. This would reduce reliance on spreadsheets and make our data even more accessible and actionable.
TEAM: What role has government policy played?
Steven: We stay informed through memberships with industry experts such as the Association of Decentralised Energy (ADE), and we closely monitor planned industry changes and consultations. Having strong data foundations through Sigma, allows us to respond quickly to new regulations and funding opportunities and ensures we are staying compliant. For example, upcoming non-commodity charges on electricity bills reinforce the value of our solar PV programme, helping schools avoid expensive grid energy.
We’re also exploring the National Wealth Fund as a future source of finance for large-scale renewable projects.
TEAM: What’s next for West Sussex County Council?
Steven: As a large county, we are lucky that we have space and our own buildings which enable us to make positive change.
We’re expanding our solar and battery programme to another 50 – 100 schools, developing a new 16MW battery storage site within the year, electrifying our fleet, and installing more EV charge points. Despite challenges, we are committed to our 2030 carbon neutral goal and continue to innovate and collaborate to make it happen. With devolution and local government reform underway in Sussex, it’s even more important to invest time in our relationships with local partners, particularly our district, borough and neighbouring authorities. This will ensure that we’re able to continue progress and make the transition to the new arrangements as smooth as possible.