Global Grooves are a Carnival arts organisation based in Tameside, taking their Carnival work to international audiences.
Sustainability is a core part of what they do, and decreasing their footprint was a key part of their growth trajectory. They were introduced to the Green Economy team in July 2023 to understand their emissions and the actions they could take to improve their sustainability credentials, leading to a solar energy project.
Prior to this, Global Grooves worked with the Green Economy team to secure a £5,000 grant which was used for an LED lighting upgrade on their site, generating annual cost savings of £11,117.83 and carbon savings of 20.08 tCO2e.
It was identified that Global Grooves use a lot of energy from hiring out their event spaces, but they have a large area on the roof of their buildings which is well suited to solar PV.
“We started working with Global Grooves by undergoing a site survey to help them understand where they were in their sustainability journey, and where they could be headed,” explains Priya Sirpal, Green Economy Consultant. “We helped them get together a solar PV calculation to give them an idea of their potential carbon and cost savings from an installation.”
Green Economy hosted a meet the buyer session, bringing three solar suppliers to the Global Grooves site who sat down with Amelia Bayliss, General Manager at Global Grooves.
“It’s been great talking to Priya and having someone to mediate the conversation,” Amelia explains.”
“The meet the buyer sessions allowed Amelia to ask her installers all the necessary questions before the project began, such as what the warranty is, how long the solar panels last, where they come from, and how daily activity might be impacted during installation.”
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Following the meet-the-buyer consultations, Global Grooves decided to move forward on the installation of a 19.32kW system carried out by Steve Duckworth. Following advice from the Growth Company about the costs of solar, the Global Grooves team accessed a solar grant from Saddleworth Community Hydro to fund the project.
“Our initial solar generation is already seeing real gains in our energy reduction,” Amelia explains. “Following this, we're looking ahead to further solar panels and exploring roof wind turbines and sustainably focused programming on our journey to Net Zero by 2030.”
