The Waterside and Chesil Vista parks are home to over 750 caravans and several large buildings which host a variety of leisure facilities – including swimming pools, spa, amusement arcades, restaurants, bars, auditorium and on-site convenience store.

Prior to contacting Low Carbon Dorset Waterside had already taken steps to reduce their emissions. All buildings had fully insulated walls and roofs, and double gazing.  LED lights had been installed throughout many of the buildings.  Some of the fleet had been swapped for electric vehicles and charging points installed.  And the roof of the site’s leisure complex already hosted a 50 kW_p solar PV array.

However, even with these measures the site still emits over 1k tonnes of CO_2e a year – mainly as a result of electricity use and high heating demands.

Most of the site’s heating demand can be attributed to the running of their swimming pools.  There are several renewable energy options which can reduce the associated carbon emissions from pools (see one example of this in the Riversmeet case study).  These measures require significant capital investment, this was not feasible for Waterside but the group plans to explore this in the future.  In the meantime, funding from Low Carbon Dorset helped to make the pool’s plant room more thermally efficient.  This involved fully lagging all pipes.  This simple, cheap measure will prevent heat being lost and save around 5 tonnes of CO_2e a year!

The Waterside Bowleaze Cove site has a large electricity demand, and unlike many businesses it uses more in the summer than the winter.  This makes solar PV a great option for the holiday park especially as lots of electricity is used in the day. With the help of a Low Carbon Dorset grant Waterside were able to add to the PV already installed on the roof of their leisure complex – this additional 65.5kW_p of solar PV will generate around 41% of the leisure complex’s current demand for exported electricity, and save around 33 tonnes of CO_2e a year.  They were also able to cover the roof of their entertainment venue with solar panels. Combined these arrays will add 115kW_p of installed renewable energy to the site – and reduce emissions by an estimated 57 tonnes of CO_2e.

It is expected that these panels will save Waterside around £15.5k a year and, with the help of the grant, pay for themselves in 3 years.

Many of the interior lights within the Waterside and Chesil Vista sites had already been converted to LEDs prior to contact with Low Carbon Dorset.  However, both sites have lots of exterior lighting which illuminates the paths and roads which connect the caravans to each other and the central services.  With the help of Low Carbon Dorset, Waterside replaced all of these exterior lights with LEDs.  This switch is estimated to save them around £550 a year and reduce emissions by 2 tonnes of CO_2e.