Monthly Archives: November 2011

‘Camden’s environmental heroes recognised’

16 November 2011: The Environmental Excellence in Camden Organisations Awards (EECO) highlight some interesting green projects being taken forward in the borough. Details of the winners and their projects provided here.

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the  University of London was awarded the ‘Innovation in energy efficiency and carbon reduction’ award for a series of projects taken forward, further detail on which are provided here.

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Wesminster: Solar panel scheme suffers set back

15 November 2011: Another potential London renewable casualty of the FIT cut: “Westminster Council’s housing provider CityWest Homes was days away from signing a deal worth £12 million to put solar panels up on 600 buildings by March 2012.” Read full story here in the Westminster Chronicle.

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Decentralised Energy project in West Drayton

13 November 2011: A new development in West Drayton of 89 two, three, four and five bedroom houses will have heat supplied from a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit based in an onsite energy centre, currently under construction.  Each home will contain a Heat Interface Unit (HIU) to control heating and hot water, providing substantial benefits to residents in helping to reduce their energy bills and carbon footprint. Read further detail here.
When finalised the heat network, developed by E.ON,  will eventually stretch across 773 homes, an 80-bed care home, a medical centre and four retail units.

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Achieving borough-wide community involvement to reduce carbon emissions in Haringey

November 2011: Haringey are organising two workshops providing an opportunity for residents to input into an Action Plan for the borough to reduce carbon emissions in Haringey by 40% by 2020. These are to be held at the Civic Centre (Council Chamber) on the 15 November between 4pm – 7pm.

Further information is posted here. Views by emailing haringey4020@haringey.gov.uk before 25 November 2011.

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London’s Poverty Profile

November 2011: Newly created, London’s Poverty Profile is an independent source of information about poverty and inequality in the capital using the latest official data to reveal patterns of poverty across the capital.Their latest study finds that “Housing costs are a critical factor in explaining why London has the highest poverty rates of all England’s regions. Taking account of housing costs, the poverty rate in London is 28%, compared to 22% in the rest of England, and the gap has grown in the last decade.” This provide further evidence that the number of Londoners deemed to be fuel poor will be much disproportionately higher than elsewhere in the country when, as is likely, the government correctly move to a new definition of fuel poverty (as suggested to Government in the recent Hills Report) to look at energy costs after the costs of housing are taken into account.

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FIT reduction – A brief guide for councils and communities

November 2011: A short briefing note from Friends of the Earth (FOE) on the Government’s recent proposals to reduce the levels of tariff support to photovoltaics (PV).

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Greenwich Peninsula Decentralised Energy Project Update

November 2011: Greenwich Council has issued a tender for services in relation to the construction of a district heating network across this major London redevelopment site. The tender states that “The Greenwich Penninsula Project is a major regeneration scheme involving 67 development plots. As part of this development and in support of low carbon initiatives a district heating system will be installed to provide heating and hot water to the development utilising low carbon energy technology. The scope of this enquiry is for the architecturl design of the buildings to house all the equipment including Biomass Boilers and CHP units.”

Further information on the Greenwich Peninsula DE project is available on:

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Analysing Options for Carbon Reduction: Housing stock refurbishment tool

November 2011: The Energy Saving Trust have developed a housing stock refurbishment calculator, which enables local authorities to input an energy efficiency profile of the housing stock in their area and to analyse options for carbon reduction.
The tool is designed to inform four key areas to help local authorities and housing stock managers justify and plan a carbon reduction scheme:
The tool is currently under development and will soon be able to offer consultancy services in modelling using the tool. For further details, please contact localdelivery@est.org.uk

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Financing model for energy efficiency retrofits

November 2011:    The Local Energy Efficiency Project (LEEP) team, which involves the Energy Saving Trust,  have been working with local authorities in the UK on a financing and delivery model for rolling out energy efficiency retrofits designed to work with private sector partners. The aim of LEEP is to create a sustainable and replicable solution that attracts commercial capital at scale for a national domestic eco-refurbishment program delivered through local authorities. A final report has just been produced which summaries the groups findings (scoll to the bottom of the  page to find reference to the report).

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Case Studies on new PV systems in London

4 November 2011: Brief case studies of three new public sector buildings installing PV:
Woolwich Civic Offices
Elm Park Library in Havering, and
Wembley’s Chalkhill Primary School

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London’s Energy & Climate Strategy Released

November 2011: After close to two years consultation, London’s Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy was released with little fanfare by the Mayor last week. Also published at the same time were London’s Water Strategy and London’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.

The Energy Strategy provides a detailed account of energy consumption and generation in London, along with their associated projected CO2 emissions, and will be examined here in further detail in some future posts very shortly.

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London’s Decentralised Energy Programme Delivery Unit

November 2011: The GLA have appointed engineering consultants Arup to provide services to support the development of  decentralised energy (DE) schemes in London, through the provision of  technical, commercial and financial advisory support.
The contract with Arup runs from September 2011 to August 2014 and will resource a new Decentralised Energy Programme Delivery Unit (DEPDU). Further information on the previous round of this programme www.londonheatmap.org

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