IN JUNE, Blenheim Palace announced that in the next 10 years, it is going to become a 'net generator of energy'.

One of England's largest houses is planning to become a power plant, creating enough power for its own needs and still have spare to supply others.

Now it has appointed the woman who will drive that transition: former environmental advisor to Royal Dutch Shell, Jacqui Gibson.

Environment Reporter Pete Hughes only wanted to ask one simple question, 'how are you going to do it?'

ON October 16, 2014, the 11th Duke of Marlborough, John Spencer-Churchill, died.

As stipulated in his will, the palace which he had run since the 1970s – rather than passing to his son Jamie – went into the care of trustees.

This year, that trust announced a 10-year development programme to 'revolutionise' the way Blenheim functions.

The plan includes tripling the estate’s contribution to the economy, housing 300 families in affordable homes, a £40m restoration programme and becoming 'a net generator of green energy'.

To put that in perspective, in 2016 Blenheim Palace used just shy of 1.8mkWh of electricity: that's the same as about 450 UK homes.

What's more, since January when the palace started opening all-year round, visitor numbers have been increasingly steadily (from roughly 880,000 in 2016).

So how can the team do it?

There are plenty of options: solar panels; wind turbines; anaerobic waste digesters; even a hydroelectric power plant: Oxford's Low Carbon Hub has just completed its £3.2m Sandford Hydro in the Thames just south of the city, which is going to generate exactly the amount of energy the palace needs.

The only problem is, the entire palace and its Capability Brown-landscaped grounds are are UNESCO World Heritage site.

As Jacqui Gibson puts it: "There's a large challenge: we can't just put solar PV or wind turbines."

The woman who has been put in charge of the green revolution has a steep hill to climb.

When asked how it can possibly be achieved, Miss Gibson is keen to point out some of the palace's string of environmental achievements so far and, in terms of lowering carbon footprint, the palace has certainly come a long way in recent years.

With its cardboard compactor installed in July, it now recycles an average of one tonne of cardboard every month; it has long had two biomass boilers, one of which heats its famous butterfly house, and Ms Gibson has given 70 members of staff 'carbon reduction training'.

What's more, the efforts are paying off: despite the palace's energy use increasing from 2015 to 2016, the CO2 footprint per visitor has gone down from 1kg per visitor in 2011 to 0.7kg.

The palace has also commissioned Oxford Brookes University to work out how it can 'treble its local economic impact' – buying local produce to cut air miles.

That's all great, but it does not begin to to help generate 1.8kWh of electricity.

When pressed on the point, Miss Gibson reveals she has appointed a slightly unexpected organisation to draw up a renewable energy strategy: estate agents Carter Jonas.

She explains: "It could be that for some of the homes we're building we could use some of that space – putting solar panels on the roofs, using some of the existing estate", but even covering the roofs of all 300 new homes with the best solar panels on the market wouldn't generate enough power to supply their needs, let along the rest of the estate.

Miss Gibson says she has also considered switching energy supply to a 'green supplier' like Bristol's Good Energy (which still doesn't help with generating energy), or hosting a biogas storage unit on the site, but that runs up against the UNESCO problem.

When pushed a bit further, she then reveals that she has actually outsourced the challenge to none other than Oxford University – specifically the world-famous Environmental Change Institute.

She said: "I've been talking to Ian Curtis at the ECI: I said 'ok, here's our challenge, away you go'."

So the answer, for the time being, seems to be 'watch this space'.

If and when they can do it it will be a game-changer, just don't hold your breath for a big announcement any time soon.