Renewables barely feature in building programme for 500 schools

Solar panels, heat pumps and sustainable designs bypassed - but now one Somerset school is taking a stand

It is a modernist version of a log cabin nestling in a busy south London suburb - and it is about to make history. The new building for Hackbridge primary, in Sutton, opens next week as England's first zero-carbon school, able to produce and conserve as much energy as it uses, and even put unused electricity generated back into the grid.

With its wood frame and cladding, solar panels, pumps to collect heat from the ground, and insulation made from recycled newspaper, it is the first school in England to meet the ambitious Passivhaus Plus low-energy design standard.