Anglian Water is holding a public drop-in session in Empingham later today to share details of the company's proposals to install solar panels on its land at Rutland Water.

The company plans to install the solar panels on land it owns below the dam at Skyes Lane to provide clean green power to its pumping station at Empingham.

The session is taking place between 3pm and 6.30pm at the Audit Hall, in Empingham, where Anglian Water will be on hand to share the background to the proposals and answer any questions.

An Anglian Water spokesperson said, "Anglian Water is proposing to install solar panels to help power the works at Empingham in Rutland as part of its renewable energy strategy.

"By generating more of the power used from renewable sources the company is moving closer to achieving its ambition of carbon neutrality by 2050.

"The proposals at Empingham are currently at an early stage and all plans will be openly discussed with the local community and key stakeholders in order to progress.

"We want to be good neighbours and the open forum is our first opportunity to show the local community what we would like to achieve from the move to use solar."

The works at Empingham help supply water to hundreds of thousands of customers across the region and require a lot of energy - around 29.4GWh every year.

Anglian Water wants to install a solar installation which would generate enough renewable energy to meet over a third of the Anglian Water work's power requirement over the course of the year. That's enough to power almost 3,000 homes.

The company says that on really sunny days the works could operate on solar power alone, significantly reducing the site's carbon footprint.

Rutland Water is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Ramsar Site and a Special Protection Area SPA and Anglian Water has carried out detailed surveys to ensure the solar panels would exist in harmony with nature.

Once detailed plans have been agreed with relevant parties, Anglian Water hopes to start installing panels later this year and will keep local communities updated as their proposals progress.

Rutland Water would be open to visitors as normal during installation and once the solar panels are in place.