Spring opening date for hospital solar farm

The site is about the size of 22 football pitches

A solar farm which will help power a city's hospital will be up and running within weeks.

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust has built the solar farm at a former landfill site the size of 22 football pitches.

It will open in April and power Wolverhampton’s New Cross Hospital with self-generated renewable energy for about 288 days, or three quarters of the year.

This will save the trust up to £20 million over the next 20 years - money bosses said would be put back into frontline healthcare.

The trust said the project would allow it to move away from a reliance on the national grid and to reduce its exposure to rising electricity costs in the next two decades.

It will also reduce its carbon emissions by 25% by 2025, helping it work towards reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

The farm will produce 6.9MWp of renewable energy to New Cross Hospital and will generate an estimated carbon saving of 1,583 tonnes of CO2e per annum, the trust said.

Prof David Loughton CBE, group chief executive at RWT, said the trust took sustainability very seriously and was committed to reducing its carbon footprint.

"We are very pleased the development will be opening soon and delighted at the way the partnerships have worked out," he said.

RWT received around £15m in grant funding for the project.

This comprised contributions from the government, the NHS and Salix Finance, a government-funded body.