As part of the investment, the housing association, which is part of the ForViva Group, is installing a new biomass heating system to replace storage heaters across the five Stockbridge Village blocks.
The two biomass energy centres, one 500kW and one 300kW, will burn wood pellets to provide 450 homes with heat and electrical energy. The project will be supported by payments through the government鈥檚 renewable heating incentive (RHI) scheme.
Forrest will also be putting in improved facilities for parking and for waste recycling, and a CCTV system to improve security.
Paul McCarren, energy director of Forrest, said: 鈥淢ore housing associations are considering biomass to improve the value of their properties, become more sustainable and help their customers with rising energy bills.
鈥淲e鈥檙e now able to deliver biomass on larger scales, which makes it perfect for providing renewable energy to local communities and passing on savings to tenants. As such, we expect biomass to be a growth area for us as housing associations, and larger commercial organisations, continue to make renewables a big part of their property portfolios.鈥�
Work has begun on the improvements to the homes and is scheduled for completion in September 2016.
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