Monthly Archives: April 2013

Mayor warms to solar

15 April 2013: The Mayor tweeting from a visit to Dubai: Fascinating visit to @MasdarCity; a new city entirely powered by solar energy”

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Greenwich Peninsula DE network

April 2013: Industry journal Utility Week revealed last week that E.ON is planning to support the development of a district heating development in the Greenwich Peninsula. The brief story states that “The energy company is in talks with the Royal Borough of Greenwich to develop heat networks around the O2 Arena”.

E.ON’s website provides some further detail on their role to date: “Initially E.ON undertook a high level technical model of the Greenwich Peninsula to assess and validate both heat demand and the indicative heat network design. A design audit shortly followed. E.ON is advising the Greenwich Peninsula Regeneration venture on the heat network design and specification provided by other consultancies, ensuring it’s sufficiently robust to be adopted by an ESCo (Energy Services Company).”

The March 2012 Greenwich Heat Mapping Study provides much more information, setting out that the “Greenwich Peninsula cluster focuses on the existing district heating network at the Greenwich Millennium Village and the O2 Stadium site and the proposed district heating network for the Greenwich Peninsula Regeneration Limited (GPRL) site. The new redevelopment site consists of 10,000 new homes and 340,000 square meters of mixed use space.”

The study goes on to say that a wider area heat network could in fact be developed by “engaging with the developers for Heart of East Greenwich, Lovell’s Wharf and Enderby Wharf to gain clarity on progress and potential for linking to wider DE network”.

Greenwich’s Climate Change Strategy from 2011 sets out plans for the wider use of decentralised energy across the borough. Greenwich’s Core Strategy consultation also sets out plans for supporting the development of CHP.

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London CRC Performance

April 2013: The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Performance Table was published a few weeks ago and attracted some media attention on who had gone up and down the table (see Guardian article here). The CRC is a complex mechanism and Government has had to return to tweak the policy time and again to simplify it. Along with the performance table, it appears the Chancellor’s view of simplification is, as set out in his Autumn Statement (December 2012), to get rid of the CRC altogether.

“1.127 The CRC’s Performance League Table will be abolished, to simplify the scheme further. A full review of the effectiveness of the CRC will be held in 2016 and the tax will be a high priority for removal when the public finances allow.”

For those new to the CRC, they should be made aware the original plan of the policy was to recycle the funds obtained from participants purchase of carbon permits, into sector-wide energy efficiency funding. The incoming Government however changed plans in 2010 and the Chancellor simply took all the funds into Government. It’s more than likely the Government would like to see the back of the CRC sooner, however, it does bring in close to £1bn to the Exchequer a year and this will increase again, as  the 2012 Autumn Budget highlights:  “2.88 The forecast allowance price remains unchanged at £12 per tonne of carbon dioxide in 2013-14 and £16 per tonne of carbon dioxide in 2014-15. From 2015-16 onwards, the allowance price will increase in line with the RPI.”

Back to the performance table: how did London do?

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Disabled Facilities Grant to fund heating

April 2013: The Department for Communities and Local Government announced last week new funding to help councils fund the adaptations disabled people need to live independently in their own home. The press release states that “Ministers have protected the Disabled Facilities Grant programme for the last 3 years, with a further £185 million expected in next year’s funding.

Included in eligible types of work for funding are:

  • adapting heating or lighting controls to make them easier to use
  • improving or providing a suitable heating system

A document setting out the allocation awarded to each local authority is provided here. Looking at London councils , it can be seen a total of £23.5m has gone to the capital – a breakdown of each borough’s funding is provided below:

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