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Author Archives: Admin
Mayor looking for London DE output
December 2014: The GLA’s Investment and Performance Board (IPB) requested a further update on work by the organisation to take on ‘license lite’ status – also known as a ‘junior electricity supply license’. This was presented at the December meeting of the IPB – the paper available to download here.
Previous posts on the GLA’s work on ‘license lite’ can be read here. This new paper provides some further updates, specifically:
- Following a tender process for a fully licensed supplier to support the GLA’s ‘license lite’ application (the tender for which was issued earlier this year), the IPB paper informs that a “successful tenderer” has been appointed. However – “No announcement has yet been made of the tender award” – though details of the successful party are set out in an Appendix to the document for the IPB, but has been held back from the public as a ‘reserved’ document.
- The next stage will be to source low carbon electricity output from London based generators. The document sets out that “Although there is a substantial interest amongst decentralised energy generators, procuring sufficient volume initially is not a foregone conclusion”. The GLA (via TfL) issued a tender for electrical generating capacity on 18 December – details of which can be seen here (Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) – 2014/S 246-433512) .
- This tender highlights that “The GLA’s objective is that by this means it will facilitate decentralised energy generators in London in obtaining a better price for the electricity they export, rather than relying upon power purchase agreements entered into in the usual way.”
- The IPB states that “The timing is for the remaining arrangements for licence lite operation to be put in place for a request for a Mayoral Decision to proceed to be made in February 2015, with a view to operation beginning in May 2015, subject to the decision being positive.”
Ofgem held a workshop on License Lite in November 2014, around a consultation they are presently undertaking on these junior license conditions. The webpage for workshop includes a presentation from the GLA, and also the GLA’s response to Ofgem’s consultation document. Both available here.
Posted in Decentralised Energy, News, Renewable Energy
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London Green Infrastructure Task Force
December 2014: A new Mayoral Decision (MD) document concerned with funding arrangements for the research and production of the London Infrastructure Plan 2050 (see previous post on the consultation document for the Plan here) provides an update on proposals in the consultation to establish a London Green Infrastructure Task Force.
The consultation document stated that the “the Mayor is establishing a Green Infrastructure Task Force to advise on the future design and management of London’s green infrastructure … the Task Force will be established in Autumn 2014 and will meet regularly in 2015 to consider the key issues and challenges facing London’s green infrastructure in the medium and longterm. By the end of 2015 it will report on its findings, including recommendations for the governance and funding arrangements required for planning, co-ordinating and investing in green infrastructure programmes and strategic projects.”
No further information appears to be have been made available to date by the Mayor on the make up of the task force or whether it has held any meetings as yet. However, the new MD sets out that the “Green Infrastructure Task Force has been convened to advise on how to establish an integrated network of green infrastructure that reflects the full range of benefits offered by green infrastructure. A budget of £20,000 is required to provide the Task Force with the research support they will require to collate and evaluate evidence on green infrastructure in London” Continue reading…
Further funds to RE:FIT to ensure targets are met
December 2014: GLA Directors have approved further funds for the Mayor’s public sector building retrofit programme RE:FIT. Directors’ Decision 1291 (DD1291) sets out that additional GLA funding is being directed to the programme to help ensure that its investment targets – as set by the EU funding programme ELENA, which provides the bulk of the funding to RE:FIT – can be met.
The DD states that RE:FIT’s Programme Development Unit (PDU) – which is managed by Turner & Townsend – “is funded until 31 March 2015 by a combination of ELENA and GLA funding (a total of £2.781 million – 85% from ELENA, 15% from the GLA). To date £2.537 million have been spent since September 2011. Under current arrangements, the PDU will be working at full capacity until the end of December 2014 and will be in closedown mode for the final three months.” Continue reading…
Go ultra low city scheme
12 December 2014: Department for Transport (DfT) guidance for bidders to a £35 million scheme to help cities increase the local uptake of ultra low emission vehicles. Full details here.
Contribution of wood burning to PM10 in London
14 December 2014: Sunday Times article covering how ‘Wood-fired stoves fuel city pollution‘. The author points to evidence supporting the article’s findings in an academic paper (fully available) published earlier this year in the journal ‘Atmospheric Environment‘ ‘Contribution of wood burning to PM10 in London‘:
“Air pollution from domestic wood burning has long been recognised as an important contributor to poor ambient air quality in Scandinavian and alpine regions of Europe where wood burning is routinely used for residential space heating. However, recent evidence is suggesting that biomass burning might be more widespread…The current study sought to determine the existing contribution of wood burning to PM10 in London so that the impacts of increased biomass burning can be quantified in the future.“
London Business Energy Award Winners
20 November 2014: The Mayor announced the winners of his Business Energy Challenge at an awards ceremony which took place at City Hall today.
The Business Energy Challenge was launched earlier this year. 59 participants submitted energy usage data over a six week period and were assessed on the carbon intensity per square metre of their properties. 27 of the most successful energy cutters were given a Bronze, Silver or Gold award to recognise their efforts when compared against their baseline 2010/11 energy usage.
The press release states that” “Some of London’s leading businesses across 1000 London locations (including shops, restaurants, banks and office premises) signed up to the challenge including Boots, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Marks and Spencer, BT, Lidl, Workspace Group, McDonalds, Asda and Aviva. The energy data collected will be used anonymously by University College London to inform energy performance benchmarks for wider use across the private sector.”
Gold award winners were EC Harris LLP, ExCeL London, Intu, JLL, Linklaters LLP, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Case studies of some of the award winning companies are posted here.
Urban Community Energy Fund Launched
November 2014: DECC have announced the new Urban Community Energy Fund – (UCEF) – trailed earlier this year in the government’s Community Energy Strategy – is now open to applications. The fund provides:
- a £10m fund to kick-start renewable energy generation projects in urban communities across England
- Grants of up to £20,000 for the more speculative, early stages of a project’s development, such as public consultation and preliminary viability studies.
- Loans of up to £130,000 to develop planning applications and a robust business case to attract further investment.
Full details – including an eligibility checker for organisations can be viewed here.
CSE and Pure Leapfrog are running a free one-day surgery in London for community groups, which aims to get them ready to make an application to the Urban Community Energy Fund. The event runs from 10am – 4pm on Monday 15 December at the Directory of Social Change.
Victoria Decentralised Energy Project
November 2014: A major decentralised energy project in Victoria has moved a step further with the appointment of Clarke Energy to deliver a 3MWe Combined Heat and Power (CHP) engine. A news release from Clarke Energy sets out that the mixed use Nova Victoria project, comprising residential, offices and commercial sites, will be connected to a district heating scheme where:
- GE’s Jenbacher units will run a combined heat and power (CHP) configuration to generate 2.96 megawatts (MW) for the area enough electricity to power more than 5,700 standard U.K. homes.
- Once operational in 2016, the CHP configuration will power the on-site Energy Centre, export electricity to the grid and provide heat to Nova residents and businesses as well as reduce carbon emissions.
- Based on 8,000 operating hours per year, the gas CHP is expected to offset more than 6,500 tons of carbon dioxide.
The Mayor’s planning decision from 2012 provides some additional background to the energy strategy of the development. Energy strategies submitted as part of the planning application for the development can be downloaded here and here.
Posted in Decentralised Energy, News
Tagged CHP, Community Heating, Decentralised Energy, Westminster
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North London ‘Smart Homes’ retrofit scheme launches
November 2014: A news report highlighting a new ‘Smart Homes’ retrofit Project which provides “homeowners in six North London boroughs access to upgrades that can help to significantly boost the sustainability of their properties…The year-long scheme will be the first of its kind in the UK, and aims to make it simpler and more affordable for residents to install insulation that will help to reduce their energy costs.”
Haringey Council’s website reveals that the project is one that was successfully awarded funding earlier this year under government’s Green Deal Communities Fund, details of which can be found in an earlier post here. The project focuses on solid wall insulation and on Victorian and Edwardian terraces where simple, cheap energy upgrades can be difficult because of the design of the older buildings. Residents in Haringey, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Islington and Waltham Forest are eligible for the scheme, which is designed see more than three quarters of work carried out by local traders. The scheme is open to both owner occupiers and landlords (or tenants with landlord consent) from the boroughs and is available up to 31st March 2015.
Further information can be found on the Smart Homes pages on Camden’s website – and on Camden’s Green Deal page here.
Posted in Energy Efficiency, News
Tagged Camden, Energy Efficiency, Enfield, Green Deal, Hackney, Haringey, insulation, Islington, Retrofit, Solid Wall Insulation, Waltham Forest
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London Business Energy Challenge Launched
August 2014: The Mayor’s Energy Advisor, Matthew Pencharz, writes on the GLA website “the Mayor is launching the Business Energy Challenge: a programme to stimulate action, encourage competition between companies taking that action and recognise what is being done by businesses in reducing the carbon intensity of their London portfolios.”
To find out more about the Business Energy Challenge, read the blog by the GLA’s Assistant Director for Environment, Stephen Tate. To enter the awards please email: BEC@london.gov.uk
RE:NEW sets out programme to 2017
6 August 2014: There have been a number of major updates to the Mayor’s flagship home energy efficiency programme RE:NEW, which has been neatly set out in the August meeting of the GLA’s Housing Investment Group. These include:
- Following a successful bid for funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB), RE:NEW was awarded €3,016,440 (£2,513,700) on 15 July 2014
- This funding is being matched by a 10 per cent contribution by the GLA of €335,160 (£279,300), taking the funding for a three year support team to €3,351,600 (£2,793,000). The funding will provide a RE:NEW Support Team to 14 July 2017.
- As with the previous phase of the RE:NEW, the programme is to be delivered by Capita Symonds, who were the successful bidder in an OJEU-compliant procurement
- Capita will catalyse investment of £352 million through supporting retrofit to 175,000 properties in London over the next three years. This intervention is the largest and most ambitious retrofit programme anywhere in the UK and will save 93,000 annual tonnes of carbon by 2017.
- An incentivisation model is built into the contract based on these three key performance indicators (KPI) and Capita have committed to achieving these through putting 20% of fees at risk.
- Below is the three year KPI profile.
- A RE:NEW Support Team ITT Schedule of Requirement provides additional programme aims, objectives and proposed benefits
- A new GLA webpage sets out a revised and comprehensive list of RE:NEW Support Team Specialist Services available to local authorities.
The London Assembly has highlighted patchy progress reporting from the RE:NEW team to its members over the past few years (see here and here). In response to this criticism, the Mayor has now committed to providing quarterly reports.
Focus on London’s Private Rented Sector and Energy Efficiency
August 2014: An important Early Day Motion (EDM) for London is currently doing the rounds in the House of Commons. EDM 95 ‘Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards for Private Rented Homes‘ sets out:
- the Private Rented Sector (PRS) has over five times more homes in EPC Bands F and G than the social housing sector
- nearly half the PRS households living in Band F and G properties are in fuel poverty
- the Energy Act 2011, placed a duty on the Government to introduce a minimum energy efficiency standard for the PRS by April 2018
- the EDM calls on the Government to ensure that the regulations are made clear and enforceable by specifying Band E as the minimum standard in all cases, and by keeping exemptions to an absolute minimum.
Suprisingly, only 4 London MPs have as yet signed the EDM:
- Corbyn, Jeremy (Labour) Islington North
- Jackson, Glenda (Labour) Hampstead and Kilburn
- Love, Andrew (Labour) Edmonton
- McDonnell, John (Labour) Hayes and Harlington
The Mayor’s recent consultation on a London Housing Strategy sets out how critical the PRS is to London and the challenges faced by Londoners living in rented accommodation. These include:
- Rents are higher in the capital, with the median monthly rent for a private rented home at £1,300, compared with a national average of £595.20 Private sector tenants in London spend an average of 36% of their gross household income on rent.
- the proportion of private renting households with children has increased sharply, from 19% to 29% between 2001 and 2011, indicating a growing reliance on this sector by families.
- Retrofitting in the private rented sector has always been challenging, but the Mayor remains committed to seeing progress.
Together with the knowledge of the poorer levels of energy efficiency in rental properties, London clearly has much to do to help tackle energy costs and fuel poverty in the PRS.
The Mayor has introduced a ‘London Rental Standard‘ (updated in May 2014) setting out a voluntary set of minimum standards that the Mayor expects from landlords, managing agents and letting agents that operate in London’s private rented sector. Though London’s PRS faces particular stresses on energy, the Standard does not go above the national regulation requirements but simply points to the Energy Act’s defined minimum standard on energy efficiency:
- Energy efficiency: landlords must work towards compliance with duties imposed upon them by the Energy Act 2011 especially related to requests for energy efficiency improvements by tenants and in relation to low ratings in energy performance.
And, in relation to this Energy Act 2011 duties, in July DECC issued a consultation on the of the introduction of the Private Rented Sector Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard Regulations setting out a series of questions around the scope and implementation of the regulations (with a deadline for responses of 2 September 2014). Minutes from a working group that lead to the development of the consultation can be viewed here.
London’s particular challenges are not picked up anywhere in the consultation document or impact assessment. Delivering energy efficiency to London’s PRS was however looked at in a National Energy Action (NEA) seminar earlier this year, which highlighted London’s added logistical, demographic and architectural challenges. Presentations from the event can be viewed here.
Much more information on the PRS is set out in the April 2014 ‘Housing In London‘ evidence base document.
Posted in Energy Efficiency, News
Tagged Camden, Ealing, Energy Efficiency, Enfield, Islington
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