Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the capacity of his Department's buildings for the micro-generation of renewable energy; and if he will make a statement.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has assessed the potential for installing renewable technologies on its London and Hanslope Park estate. The installation of solar panels or wind turbines on the London estate was determined not to be feasible for infrastructural, planning and other reasons.

A feasibility study at our large Hanslope Park campus site, looked at a range of renewable options, including wind, roof mounted solar photovoltaic panels, solar domestic hot water, a photovoltaic solar farm, a photovoltaic solar canopy over the car park, tri-generation biomass heat and power, anaerobic digestion and ground source heat pumps. It concluded that the best option would be to install site-wide renewables on a larger than micro-generation scale.

At present, 100% biodiesel from waste and secondary oils is used to heat Hanslope Park, providing 2,878,247 kWh of ultra-low carbon heat in the 2013/14 winter heating season.