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News
Local authorities are taking charge of their energy supply…
February 2014: Useful Guardian online web discussion on how ‘Local authorities are taking charge of their energy supply, so what can we learn from projects so far? Good level of London contributions to the debate, including representatives from Hackney, Haringey and Repowering London. Worth a quick read!
London housing energy efficiency evidence session
February 2014: On 6 February, the London Assembly Environment Committee held an oral evidence session on the Mayor’s housing energy efficiency retrofit programme, RE:NEW, and its progress to achieving its stated CO2 targets. Details of the evidence session are set out here. A background paper to the evidence session is here. The session was available on webcast and can be viewed here.
Next round of the ‘Big London Energy Switch’
February 2014: Registration is now open for the February 2014 auction of the Big London Energy Switch – full details at biglondonenergyswitch.org.uk. An evaluation report on previous rounds can be viewed via this previous post. Some headline data for this London collective energy purchasing initiative is set out in DECC’s ‘Helping Customers Switch’ report (see pages 21 onwards).
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Energy & Climate Questions to the Mayor
January 2014: This month the Mayor has been asked questions in relation to:
the Mayor’s meetings with energy ministers; KPIs under the Mayor’s Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy; establishing a London Energy Cooperative; ECO funding in London; the number of energy suppliers signed up to the Mayor’s MoU; the Mayor’s support for the Energy Bill Revolution’s Cold Homes Week; Kew Gardens decentralised energy scheme; London avoiding the ‘capacity crunch‘; solar installations on GLA buildings; the underheating of Londoners’ homes; the RE:NEW programme energy efficiency targets; the Mayor’s concerns over Government ‘Allowable Solutions‘ proposals; insulation industry jobs; Excess Winter Deaths; insulation projects stalled under ECO; the stalled Affinity Sutton insulation project; RE:NEW targets; retrofitting and planning restrictions; renewable energy installations on the GLA estate; GLA funding to Capita to manage the RE:NEW programme; British Gas funding to ECO; the Mayor’s High Level Electricity Working Group; LED streetlighting projects; CO2 savings achieved under RE:NEW; delayed CO2 savings under RE:NEW; the Climate Change Leaders for a Low Carbon London fuel poverty project; planning CO2 target requirements; meetings with DCLG; biofuel and London buses; GLA Environment Team budgets over next two years; Mayor’s application to the Government’s Green Deal Communities Fund; and tendering for License Lite services.
Previous months questions to the Mayor can be found here.
Posted in Decentralised Energy, Energy Efficiency, News, Renewable Energy
Tagged ECO, Fuel Poverty, Planning, RE:NEW
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London carbon targets to be missed by three quarters?
February 2014: At last week’s Mayoral Question Time, Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones questioned the Mayor over his retrofitting CO2 targets – which has been posted online and can be viewed here.
Assembly Member Jones states that by the end of the Mayor’s term of office, his CO2 reduction targets, as set out in London’s Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy, will have been missed by three-quarters.
In response, the Mayor said that her comments should not be so dismissive: that he had protected the budgets for his retrofitting programme, over 90,000 homes had been retrofitted despite London’s population growing by 600,000 and London’s economy going ‘gang busters’, and that a 20% reduction in CO2 savings had been achieved since 2008. Ms Jones however promised to write to the Mayor setting out her analysis on the slow pace of London’s carbon reduction progress.
New Cities & Climate Change Envoy appointed
3 February 2014: Following on from a recent announcement that London’s former climate change and energy advisor had been appointed to head up the C40 Cities climate and energy initiative, news that the President of the Board of C40, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, has been appointed as the UN’s first Special Envoy on Climate Change and Cities. The World Bank’s news release states:
“…building low-carbon cities – is critically important. The United Nations Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change needs to be a visionary who ruthlessly pushes to reach bold targets as quickly as possible. The selection of Michael Bloomberg is inspired. He has the potential of helping mayors across the world turn their cities into clean metropolises that dramatically reduce emissions of dangerous levels of pollutants into the atmosphere. The potential global good is enormous: Estimates show if the world’s cities take a low-carbon development path, we could cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 10 giga-tons, or 30 percent of the world’s emissions, which is twice the annual carbon footprint of the entire European Union.”
This new post builds on an announcement made by the World Bank in October 2013 of a new Low-Carbon Livable Cities (LC2) Initiative – more of which here.
And good to see our own Mayor welcoming the creation of this new position:
£10m Urban Community Energy Fund launched
January 27 2014: The Government’s new Community Energy Strategy is being launched today and press reports have highlighted that it will include a new £10m Urban Community Energy Fund (UCEF). This mirrors the existing Rural Community Energy Fund, and is clearly welcome news for London-based community-led energy projects.
This fund will be open to non-rural communities and will provide up to approximately £150,000 of funding for feasibility and pre-planning development work to help projects become investment ready. The funding will be available in two stages:
- Stage one will be a grant of up to approximately £20,000 for feasibility of renewable energy projects.
- Stage two will be a loan of up to approximately £130,000 to support pre-planning development work, planning applications and to develop robust business cases to attract further development.
No details as yet to when the Fund will be launched or how long it will operate for. Hopefully this will all become apparent later today…
Posted in Decentralised Energy, News
Tagged DECC, Decentralised Energy, Funding, Renewable Energy
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Decentralised Heat and Power Points to London’s Energy Future
January 2014: Still a few days left to see BBC’s excellent Inside Out London programme. The first half covers the increasing levels of energy theft being observed by energy companies and -18 minutes in – the programme looks at potential future solutions to the provision of more affordable heat and power in London.
The growth in local energy solutions, such as combined heat and power (CHP) plants and the introduction of new district heating schemes are highlighted, including recent projects installed in Islington (Bunhill CHP) and the heat network constructed from the SELCHP waste to energy scheme, which transports low cost heat to 2,500 households in Southwark with an approximate 22% reduction in heating charges.
City Hall Carbon Emissions Session
January 2014: The London Assembly’s Environment Committee is to hold an oral evidence session next week (30 January) on the Mayor’s carbon targets. A paper sets out that the evidence session forms part of an “investigation” into the delivery of the carbon targets, which will take place over February and March 2014.
At the evidence session – which is open to the public – the Committee will meet with Mayoral Advisors and GLA officers in the environment and the property portfolios, as well as external guests from the energy sector, local government and other external stakeholders to discuss targets to improve energy efficiency in homes, targets to increase decentralised and low-carbon energy supply, and general carbon reduction targets and strategy.
The targets are set out in the Mayor’s 2011 Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy and include:
- Energy efficiency in homes and workplaces – particularly under
- RE:NEW (a support team to help social housing providers and local authorities to enable domestic retrofit projects to be delivered faster, bigger and with better value for money)
- RE:FIT (a building retrofitting scheme to support public sector organisations to reduce their carbon footprint and subsequent energy bills)
- non-GLA work such as the Green Deal (a Government initiative that is designed to help businesses and home owners to employ more green technologies in their properties);
- Low-carbon transport;
- Low-carbon energy generation;
- Tackling fuel poverty;
- Reducing carbon emissions in the GLA group;
- Measuring London’s carbon emissions; and
- Funding routes, business models and skills opportunities in the low-carbon economy.
Hackney Energy hit the ground running!
January 2014: This week saw some positive news stories concerning a new London community energy group – Hackney Energy. The group launched a new twitter account @HackneyEnergy and website and – more importantly – announced that they had established a new community solar project. It’s modest at 3.84kW – but it helps power a public toilet and cafe in Clapton. Read a blog on the great story behind this project.
And on Friday the Hackney Gazette and Inside Housing covered plans by Hackney Energy to work with Repowering London on a community PV project, similar in scope to the Brixton Energy scheme. The Gazette reports that:
“Youth internships and apprenticeships will also be created by the scheme, which plans to will increase awareness about energy efficiency, provide a financial return to investors, and reduce Hackney’s carbon footprint.
“Repower London’s chief executive officer, Agamemnon Otero said: “It’s not just about putting some solar panels up on the roof, but it’s about creating a platform for those who are most disaffected, those who are out of work, so there’s something they can be part of, so they can donate their time and energy and see their community changing.” Also see Hackney Council news release.
Further support for RE:NEW programme
January 2014: The GLA has decided to seek additional support in its bid to DECC’s Green Deal Communities Fund. The approval form states that:
“The GLA is seeking approval to commission Create and Sustain Limited through a Single Source Action to provide services up to a maximum value of £27,000 to support the RE:NEW programme from November to March 2014.
The key aims for this period are:
- to develop the GLA’s bid to the DECC Green Deal Communities Fund
- to liaise with, and gain buy in from key stakeholders including London boroughs, social landlords and delivery agents as necessary to complete the bid
- to work with the London Landlord Accreditation Service to develop the bid
- to provide additional support to the RE:NEW Programme which could include:
- finalising the MoUs with Energy Suppliers
- support with the paperwork and processes needed to establish the project management resource if successful with the DECC funding
- support a review of the RE:NEW Framework“
The £20m Green Deal Communities Fund was launched by Government in July 2013 – details here and then, in December 2013, as part of the announced changes to ECO, DECC stated that the Government “will increase the funds available to local authorities this year through Green Deal Communities from £20 million to £80 million, to help support ‘street-by-street’ programmes for hard-to-treat homes.” If London were to secure funding on a rough population basis – as much as £10m from this new fund could be directed to the capital’s energy efficiency retrofit programmes.
The RE:NEW programme is also presently supported by Capita (see here and here) until the end of March 2014.
GLA extends funding for energy advice on planning assessments
January 2014: Welcome news that the GLA Investment Board has approved to continue funding for technical consultancy support reviewing energy statements submitted to the Mayor as part of planning submissions. Full details are given in a paper presented at the Board’s latest meeting (16 January), which states:
“The London Plan requires developers to submit an energy strategy demonstrating how CO2 emissions reductions from major developments will be achieved against targets set in policy 5.2 of the London Plan. Each strategy is assessed by the GLA’s in-house energy planning officer supported by consultants who provide up to 4 days per week specialist energy engineering advice. The current energy engineering consultancy support contract began on 20th May 2013 and expires 31st March 2014. To provide ongoing consultancy support, approval is sought to procure consultancy services via a competitive tendering exercise for the period 1st April 2014 to 30th March 2018 with a value of up to £440,000.”
Further information on the GLA energy statement assessment process here. The latest review of the implementation of the energy policies of the London Plan indicate the significant impact these are having in helping drive low carbon developments in London. These requirements are however currently under threat as a result of the proposals from the DCLG – more of which here.