Children from St Joseph’s RC Primary School and Gascoigne Primary School got the opportunity to visit the Barking District Heating Network to learn more about global warming and the work being done to combat it at a series of educational events organised by Vital Energi.
The children were visited by Ashley Walsh, Vital Energi’s Managing Director of Heat Networks, who gave a talk about global warming, low carbon energy and how we can reduce emissions before the classes visited a construction site to see the district heating installation process.
Each child was also given a goody bag, which included various items, and created a drawing inspired by environmental themes, with an amazon voucher for the winners of each class, with the proposed artwork due to be displayed on fences around the construction works and other areas across the town centre.
Ashley Walsh explains, “Our projects help to lower carbon emissions, which is crucial for us as a nation if we want to meet the government’s carbon reduction targets. Projects like the Barking District Heating Network give us the opportunity to engage with young people and let them see, up close, how we are combatting global warming by lowering our emissions and, hopefully for some, it will help to foster a life-long interest in the environment.”
Overall, approximately 245 students took part across the two events.
In addition to the activities, Vital Energi also donated £1,000 to each primary school which will be used to assist them with future provisions for their STEM commitments.
When completed, the £10m heat network will connect 15 different sites, over 8,000 homes and deliver 12,000 tonnes of carbon reduction per annum.* The heat network will be powered by a new energy centre which will house two 1.5MWe combined heat and power engines and 27MW of backup gas boilers which will provide added resilience as well as contributing during peak demand.
*Based on the GLA Deep Methodology
