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Library
Evaluation of Hackney Carbon Emissions Reduction Pilot
September 2011: Over fourteen months in 2010 and 2011 the Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) Research Team, in partnership with Blooming Green and Dr Joanne Wade, carried out an rolling evaluation of a pilot project aiming to promote energy use and carbon reductions in the housing stock in the Hackney Downs ward. The project was commissioned by the Sustainable Environment Group of Hackney’s Local Strategic Partnership. The evaluation report brings together the lessons from all stages of the project evaluation and sets this learning in the context of the future landscape that Hackney partners will face when continuing with work to reduce energy use in the future.
It’s heating or eating in winter for us, pensioners warn Mayor
19 September 2011: The Evening Standard has today highlighted how a group of pensioners – including Islington Pensioners Forum – have submitted a petition to City Hall last week calling on the Mayor to do more to assist vulnerable people across the capital who are unable to pay their bills. In addition, London Councils has set out its concerns that over a quarter of Londoners are struggling to meet their energy bills – with rising prices and welfare reforms threatening to send even more into fuel poverty. To demonstrate how widespread the issue is, London Councils has modelled the impact of fuel poverty on four separate households – a lone parent, a ‘squeezed middle’ couple with two children, a lone pensioner and an extended family. When London’s housing costs are factored in, all but the ‘squeezed middle’ couple live in fuel poverty, spending more than 10 per cent of their income on energy bills (the Government’s definition of those classed as being fuel poor).
The London Councils fuel poverty modelling report and press release can be downloaded here.
London loses under Warm Front…again.
15 September 2011: The Government’s Warm Front scheme offers a package of heating and insulation measures of up to £3,500 for people on income-related benefits. To be eligible you must own your home or rent it from a private landlord. The latest annual report for Warm Front was published yesterday and, as with last year, London came bottom regionally (England only) in terms of support delivered by the programme in all but one measure. Specifically:
- Total number of households assisted 8,849 (7 per cent of the total assisted in 2010/11)
- Total number of heating measures 6,056 (5.8 per cent of total assisted)
- Total number of insulation measures 2,427 (6.1 per cent of total assisted)
The one area where the programme delivered better in London than elsewhere was with respect to Benefit Entitlement Checks (BEC) where the average weekly increase in benefits achieved was £37.27, a good 20 per cent more than the next highest region. This would provide a total increase in unclaimed benefits to those London households of £1,938 a year.
As part of the outcome of the ‘Spending Review 2010’ Government reduced funding to Warm Front to provide a smaller more ‘targeted’ scheme for the next two years (with no information as to whether the programme will continue past 2012). With the relative success of Warm Front in London on BECs, it is disappointing to note that the Annual Report states that this new streamlined Warm Front programme “will no longer provide benefit entitlement checks. Given the reduction in the budget for the scheme, the decision was taken to focus on measures that can deliver immediate heat and warmth into customers’ homes, as well as potentially lowering their energy bills. Customers will still be signposted to other services and stakeholders that provide access to benefits advice, such as Citizens Advice.”
Guidelines tightened to improve heat pump performance
8 September 2011: Industry journal Utility Week reports that “guidelines governing how heat pumps are supplied, designed and installed have been tightened in a bid to improve the performance of systems that have often disappointed those purchasing them. Energy Secretary Chris Huhne today welcome the updated microgeneration installation standard (MIS) 3005 which follows work by his department and the the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) heat pump working group.”
Businesses investing in renewable energy could generate returns of over 10%
8 September 2011: Carbon Trust Advisory analysis has found that businesses which invest in renewable energy could make average returns of 11-12%, with the potential for returns in excess of 20%. According to the findings, new financial incentives, energy market trends and building regulations are combining to create a compelling case for UK businesses to generate their own renewable energy. With energy prices set to grow by up to 37% by 2020, the opportunity to reduce utility bills is a strong incentive for investigating renewable energy options.
The Housing Crisis in London
8 September 2011: A report released today by lobby group the Pro Housing Alliance claims that housing conditions in the UK are among the worst in Western Europe and cost the country £7 billion in costs to the NHS, social services and education. Alongside its main report, Recommendations for the Reform of UK Housing Policy, is a supplement focused on the capital called the Housing Crisis on London, where the authors state that the situation is particularly bleak.
The London report lists a long of very significant problems with the housing market here, but the report also highlights that:
- The condition of the London stock is worse than national in several respects such as state of repair, security and energy efficiency
- Energy efficiency (SAP) ratings tend to be lower in London than elsewhere
- Carbon emissions higher; and
- Summer overheating more of a problem because of the ‘heat island’ effect
These will be issues which the Mayor will need to look at through the current process (launched last week) of revising London’s housing strategy.
Home Energy Pay As You Save Pilot Review
8 September 2011: The (Pay As You Save) PAYS Review is a summary of the key findings from five pilots – which includes a trial in Sutton – that trialled a range of financing repayment options to incentivise householders to install energy efficient and micro-generation measures in their homes. DECC report that the Energy Saving Trust (EST) PAYS Review “provides very useful insights into delivering financial packages to encourage energy-saving installations in homes. These insights include householder attitudes and preferences to the various delivery approaches adopted in the pilots. PAYS has demonstrated that innovative solutions can be developed to overcome the barriers associated with delivering energy saving measures into the UK housing stock. While these pilots did not test the Green Deal (to be launched in autumn 2012) – key features like repayment through energy bills and the ability to pass costs on when you move home will only be possible once legislation has passed – PAYS did test some consumer attitudes and types of delivery models. “
Environmental Health – acting to reduce the impact of climate change
September 2011: A useful report released in July by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, highlighing how Environment Health Practitioners (EHPs) across the country are taking action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The document entitled Our world, our wellbeing showcases 65 EHP interesting initiatives including schemes introduced by Croydon and the City of London Corporation, covering issues such as retrofitting, behaviour change and fuel poverty programmes.
CESP Update for London
7 September 2011: Ofgem’s half yearly update (to the end of June 2011) on energy companies progress against their targets under the Community Energy Savings Programme (CESP) has just been published. However, the results provided in the update only refer to the 201 UK-wide ‘proposed‘ schemes, as opposed to the schemes actually ‘approved’ by Ofgem. With reference to London, the CESP update reports that 15 schemes have been proposed. In terms of actual measures delivered, London schemes in operation (an unknown number), have installed 1047 measures in 751 dwellings. The CESP Annual Report published earlier this year noted the slow progress of the programme to date: the update goes on to highlight the difficulties in getting schemes of the ground as even if all of those proposals put forward by energy companies to Ofgem for approval came to fruition,they would only represent around 50% of the CESP target, with only just a year left of the programme to go.
Posted in Energy Efficiency, Library, News
Tagged CESP, Energy Efficiency, Fuel Poverty, Ofgem
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Warm homes in the private-rented sector – a toolkit for local authorities
September 2011: This toolkit produced by National Energy Action (NEA) provides information on how local authorities in England and Wales can most effectively use the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) to reduce fuel poverty in the private-rented sector.
Connecting Decentralised Energy to London’s Electricity Network
September 2011: Back in May Ofgem issued an ‘open letter’ requesting views from the distributed generation (also commonly called decentralised generation) industry of their experience of connecting projects to the local electricity network. Ofgem’s letter sets out that they:
“consider that the efficient development of distributed generation could play an important role in addressing a number of key policy issues. These include helping the UK to achieve its targets for reduced carbon emissions as well as improving the security of energy supply and addressing fuel poverty issues. To this end, we have endeavoured to ensure that those seeking to connect distributed generation to the network do not encounter any unnecessary barriers resulting from the way that the electricity distribution networks are operated and regulated.”
The increased use of decentralised energy is a key element of London’s energy strategy, and the Mayor has established a target for 25% of London’s heat and power to be sourced by localised DE schemes by 2025.
Ofgem have now published a useful ‘High Level Summary’ of responses which highlights the difficulities that DE operators experience when bringing forward a project. This includes the:
- Limited and inconsistent distribution network data available to generators
- Costly processes ranging from connection assessments to legal fees
- Prohibitively complex grid code requirements placed on these smaller distributed generation systems.
No regional aspects are highlighted in the findings – that is – is it any harder/easier to connect DE to London’s electricity distribution system (operated by UK Power Networks in the main and also SSE in SW London) than anywhere else, however, if London is to significantly increase its use of DE, the numerous barriers identified by smaller generators that currently exist need to be removed.
Posted in Decentralised Energy, Library, News
Tagged CHP, Decentralised Energy, Distribution, Ofgem, UK Power Networks
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Greener Homes Costing Less…but cost more in London
August 2011: The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) have released the latest in its regular updates on the additional cost requirements of building homes to higher levels of environmental standards as required under the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH). CLG’s press release states that “homes built to Code level 3 standards, average extra costs have fallen by almost three quarters in the last three years – falling from £4,458 in 2008 to £1,128 in 2010” – the extra costs being those required to achieve the Code level over the cost of building to the baseline building specification – in this case a Part L 2006 compliant building.
The research highlights that:
- A significant fraction of the costs of building to Code standards are incurred under the Energy and CO2 category of the Code.
- Typically meeting Code 3 requirements has involved improvement of the building fabric in combination with a solar thermal system or small PV array.
- But the standard could also be achieved through fabric improvement alone at a similar extra-over cost to strategies involving low carbon generation and several home builders cited a preference to avoid installing generator technologies on grounds of simplicity; and
- A fabric only approach at Code level 3 may become the norm
The research also highlights (pages 70/71) however that there are regional variations in the costs associated with meeting the targets, with London estimated to be up to 9% higher than elsewhere taking labour and material costs (from the industry price guide SPONS) into account.
The report highlights that as yet there is too little experience of building homes to higher levels of the Code however it is likely that biomass systems and community heating networks will be increasingly required to delivered the CO2 savings needed. In relation to London it must be noted however that :
- There are major concerns amongst air quality experts in relation to the use of biomass heat and power systems in London which will likely limit their use (new emission standards for biomass systems are currently being devised)
- Progress on the development of district heating networks in London remains slow despite the Mayor’s commitment to a 2025 25% decentralised energy target for the capital.
Posted in Library, News
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