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Monthly Archives: June 2012
London and the Green Deal
June 2012: The Green Deal Impact Assessment, launched earlier this week, highlighted how London is proposing to be a key player in the ‘New Green Deal Market’ under the Mayor’s plans for the RE:NEW home retrofit programme:
“The Greater London Authority’s (GLA) ‘Delivering London’s Energy Future’ strategy states its intention to retrofit 1.2m homes in the Greater London area by 2015 (this is equivalent to 100% of the total number of homes expected to be retro fitted in the national Green Deal). The GLA intends to do this by working with all the London boroughs to build on the success of RE:NEW, its refurbishment programme, that has retrofitted 11,000 homes to date. The GLA is working to integrate RE:NEW with new energy efficiency and energy supply funding streams, such as the Green Deal and the Feed-in Tariff, so retrofitting can be offered to all London homes by 2030.” [page 49]
Download DECC’s ‘Final Stage Impact Assessment for the Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation’ here.
Mass-retrofitting of a low carbon zone
June 2012 A very detailed piece of analysis undertaken by researchers at Edinburgh University (and published in the June issue of academic journal Energy Policy) which studies the work being undertaken in Sutton on adopting an area wide retrofit scheme in Hackbridge.
The conclusions highlight some really interesting findings relating to Hackbridge which are also very relevant to other areas of London. These include:
- housing built pre-1918 on average consumes 56% more energy and emits 41% more CO2 than houses built post-2001;
- the older housing stock is the worst performer in terms of energy efficiency; the most laborious and costly to improve;
- within the regeneration footprint, this type of housing makes up less than 20% of the housing stock. Nearly 40% of the housing stock having been built post-1970 is already benefitting from many of the measures proposed to save energy and reduce carbon emissions;
- almost one third of Hackbridge residents live in areas which rank within the top 25% most income-deprived in England, renting their homes from the Local Authority, Registered Social Landlords, Housing Associations or the private-rented sector. Homes in the social-rented sector that have been shown to consume less energy and to emit less CO2 than other housing types of a similar age in Hackbridge. Indeed, using the Government’s Standard Assessment Procedure for the energy rating of dwellings (SAP), the local authority housing in question is shown to out-perform the national average ratings across all dwelling types.
The study also includes: “…while policy analysis over the past decade has done much to highlight the potential contribution mass retrofits in the housing sector can make to reduce the rates of energy consumption and levels of carbon emissions, they also serve to illustrate how little is currently known about the institutional arrangements towns and cities are currently putting in place as integrated solutions to the problems climate change pose.“
Unusually for Energy Policy, the article full downloadable free of charge here.
Mayor to encourage community energy projects
June 2012: The Mayor has published revised ‘early minor alterations to the London Plan’ aimed at ensuring that the London Plan is fully consistent with the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (published March 2012).
Page 30 of the ‘Early Minor Alterations’ document sets out a proposed revision to Chapter 5 of the London Plan – which addresses planning and climate change – to support community-led initiatives renewable and low carbon projects through neighbourhood planning. The exact amended text (in bold) follows below:
5.41 The Mayor’s supplementary planning guidance will set out broad guidelines to assist boroughs and, where appropriate,neighbourhoods, to define locations where stand-alone renewable energy schemes would be appropriate. The increased use of renewable heat will also significantly depend on the growth of heat networks. The Mayor and Boroughs will also encourage community-led initiatives for renewables and low carbon energy and examine how they can be supported through neighbourhood planning.” [page 30]
The supplementary planning guidance referred to is on renewable energy (which is also referred to in para 5.40 of Chapter 5 – see link above) and has, as yet, not been published by the Mayor. A major renewable energy study for London has however been completed and was issued in January 2012.
Further information to the background on new neighbourhood plans can be viewed here.
Posted in Library, News
Tagged Community Initiatives, Mayor, Planning, Renewable Energy
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FIT FAQ
June 2012: Confused by all the recent changes to the Government’s FIT programme? Here’s a FAQ document DECC have just posted online which goes some way to help explain…
“London’s carbon reduction and climate mitigation dilemmas are complex and critical…”
June 2012: A new report outlining the imperatives for London’s future success has recently been published and contains views from around 100 leading thinkers about the future of cities into the second decade of the 21st century – including the following:
“While some challenges remain as intractable as ever, others have only surfaced more recently. The major policy area which has moved inescapably to the forefront since London:World City is that of climate change. In 1991 environmental concerns were primarily limited to air pollution, sulphur dioxide emissions, noise and litter. The implications of carbon dioxide emissions for urban life and urban policy had barely registered. Today London’s carbon reduction and climate mitigation dilemmas are complex and critical. There is increasing evidence that world cities will need to introduce rigorous climate-change-oriented provision in order to meet the security and ethical demands of an increasingly environmentally conscious citizenry.”
Use of GIS to determine domestic energy efficiency potential
June 2012: Presentation by the Energy Saving Trust (EST) on helping overcome what EST say is the “disconnect between data managers and delivery teams when delivering retrofit schemes.”
Heat Maps produced for every London borough
June 2012: The London Heat Map project has now posted online heat map reports and datasets for every London borough. Information provided sets out that “The new heat maps are higher resolution with real heat consumption data for priority buildings such as hospitals, leisure centres and local authority buildings. As part of this work, each of the boroughs has developed implementation plans to help them take the decentralised energy opportunities identified to the next stages. The implementation plans include barriers and opportunities, actions to be taken by the council, key dates, personnel responsible.”
Posted in Data Store, News
Tagged CHP, Community Heating, Data, Heat Maps, London Heat Map
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Map of London District Heating Schemes
June 2012: The London Heat Map captures a lot of the data related to Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and district heating schemes operating in the capital, but the CHPA have added a welcome web resource – a map of UK district heating schemes which includes a good number of London schemes. DECC also provides a list of CHP schemes operating in London – it’s not comprehensive however as operators are not required to have their details listed. Hence, only 32 schemes are listed on the DECC Public CHP database of the 188 schemes DECC state are operating in London in their latest regional CHP statistics.
Posted in Data Store, News
Tagged CHP, Community Heating, Data, Decentralised Energy
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Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy Model Data
June 2012: The London Datastore has recently posted a spreadsheet containing the data behind the Mayor’s climate change mitigation and energy strategy, which was published in October 2011. This is particularly useful as the strategy provided graphical projections of the predicted savings of the Mayor’s various carbon-reduction programmes, but not ‘hard numbers’. Tab 6b of the spreadsheet sets these out, and some of the key programmes are summarised below:
Emissions Savings [MtCO2/yr] of committed Mayoral actions:
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |
| RE:NEW | 0.0103 | 0.0207 | 0.0310 | 0.2300 | 0.4290 |
| Low Carbon Zones | 0.0009 | 0.0036 | 0.0061 | 0.0061 | 0.0061 |
| New Build through planning (domestic) | 0.1501 | 0.1501 | 0.1501 | 0.0869 | 0.0869 |
| RE:FIT | 0.0012 | 0.0061 | 0.0133 | 0.0217 | 0.0303 |
| Better Buildings Partnership | 0.0000 | 0.0050 | 0.0050 | 0.0050 | 0.0050 |
| ERDF* | 0.0053 | 0.0089 | 0.0089 | 0.0089 | 0.0089 |
| LDA Energy Efficiency Revolving Fund | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0004 | 0.0004 | 0.0004 |
| New Build through Planning (non-domestic) | 0.2042 | 0.2042 | 0.2042 | 0.1182 | 0.1182 |
*ERDF refers to the funding received by London government through the European Regional Development Fund, which helps fund – amongst other things – the London Green Fund. Further information here.
The Mayor has not as yet reported on savings achieved by his programmes (ie for the years 2010/11 and 2011/12) but Chapter 10 of the Mayor’s energy strategy sets out that these will forthcoming through two actions:
• Action 17.1 – The Mayor will continue to publish the London Energy and Greenhouse Gas Inventory (LEGGI) online every year (the latest dataset is for 2008, published in September 2010)
• Action 17.2 – The Mayor will produce an annual report on London’s progress on meeting its CO2 emissions reduction targets, including annual estimated CO2 emissions, and progress on Mayoral climate change mitigation programmes.
Posted in Data Store, News
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Designing Buildings for Future Climate – Conference
June 2012: An interesting one-day conference to be held at the Building Centre on Tuesday 12 June focusing on how future buildings will have to adapt as a result of climate change. The projects were supported through the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) Design for Future Climate: Adapting Buildings competition which funded 50 projects to assess climate change risks and develop adaptation strategies across a variety of building types including housing, schools, offices and university buildings.
A number of London projects were included in the project and will be highlighted during the day including: Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Phase 2b, London Bridge Station Redevelopment, Andrew Ewing Primary School (Hounslow), the London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Greenwich, and 100 City Road.
Attendance is free – further details of the event including agenda can be viewed here.
‘Second time lucky for Boris’s green pledges?’
June 2012: Recent BusinessGreen article suggesting that the Mayor “in tacit recognition of these failures [referring to previous pledges], Johnson has pledged to step up his efforts on improving the capital’s environment. As part of his plans to turn over a new green leaf, sustainable policies will be overseen from a higher level and will include the planting of thousands more street trees and scaling up of successful building energy efficiency programmes...As well as the expected plans to meet the targets he failed to meet last year in insulating homes and delivering a major electric vehicle recharging network, they also include launching a London-based Centre for Carbon Measurement by the end of next year, taking active steps to ensure the success of the Green Investment Bank, and lobbying government to include water efficiency in retrofit programmes.” Read the full piece here.
RE:FIT – Lessons from London
June 2012: Guardian news piece detailing the Mayor’s public sector building retrofit scheme, RE:FIT. Read the article here. Further information on RE:FIT here.