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News
The BBC’s Climate Change Advisory Group
October 2013: Following on from an earlier post on the BBC’s reporting of climate science – where it emerged the BBC had some time ago established a ‘Climate Change Advisory Group’ – I sent a few emails to the BBC Trust and information service asking for brief details about this particular Group. With no response forthcoming, I then sent an FOI request to the BBC Trust asking for some basic information about the Group:
External Wall Insulation and the Planning System
October 2013: Solid Wall Insulation (SWI) is critical in helping improve the energy efficiency of a large proportion of London’s homes and hence helpful that the GLA’s RE:NEW team have produced a short FAQ document on planning issues around the retrofit of External Wall Insulation (EWI).
The note highlights that a General Permitted Development Order (GPDO) was “clarified in regard to external wall insulation for single houses in technical guidance published by the Department for Communities and Local Government, in January 2013. It is stated that for the purposes of planning, external wall insulation is considered to be an ‘improvement’ rather than ‘development’, and, hence, does not require an applicant to make a planning application first to the local planning authority.”
Further information on the CLG planning order referenced above can be seen in an earlier post here. Further information on planning issues related to the roll-out of SWI in London can also be seen in this really helpful Future of London briefing note here.
Posted in Energy Efficiency, News
Tagged ECO, insulation, RE:NEW, Solid Wall Insulation
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London’s electricity infrastructure under spotlight
October 2013: The issue of London’s electricity infrastructure is being raised in several quarters now, most recently by the Mayor in a letter to Secretary of State for Energy , Ed Davey, and through the Mayor’s High Level Electricity Working Group. More recently the GLA London Infrastructure Group has looked at future constraints on London’s electricity network, which has led to the recent commissioning of a piece of research work looking at barriers to connection to the electricity distribution network in the capital.
The latest meeting of the Infrastructure Group turns again to this issues, with a short briefing paper (Agenda Item 4 Appendix A) presented for discussion which highlights the following:
“the UK’s poor ranking on electricity connections (only 62nd out of 185 economies) in the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ survey (London example was used for UK assessment), the Prime Minister’s Office and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) are now investigating the issue and officers as well as Matthew Pencharz are in touch with relevant officials. ”
In relation to the recently commissioned research the paper states this “is expected to conclude in January/February 2014, and on its basis further discussions with the Government and other key players about improving infrastructure funding arrangements will be initiated.”
Elephant & Castle plans to be ‘Climate Positive’
October 2013: London SE1 community website recently reported that “Lend Lease’s Elephant & Castle programme has been formally recognised by C40 Cities Climate Leadership to become the third project of 18 globally to reach ‘participant’ status.
The ‘climate positive participant’ rating is conferred by sustainability experts acting on behalf of C40’s Climate Positive Development Programme in partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative.
To achieve this status, Elephant & Castle developers have submitted a roadmap which demonstrates that the scheme is set to be climate positive by 2020.”
Further information on the Elephant and Castle regeneration website states construction started last month on “the first 500 new homes …[which] will be some of the most sustainable, energy efficient and occupier-friendly places to live in Britain.” Amongst the ‘green’ initiatives to be incorporated in to what is one of the largest regeneration sites in Europe will be an ” on-site combined heat and energy centre [which] will not only provide heat and power to the homes and shops, it will also act as an interactive community and educational centre for the public.”
Some further background to this scheme and its carbon-reduction plans can be read in an earlier post here.
Posted in Decentralised Energy, News
Tagged CHP, Community Heating, Decentralised Energy, Planning, Southwark
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Barriers to Electricity Connections in London
October 2013: Interesting to see the GLA have recently approved funding to commission “external consultants to collect evidence of barriers experienced by developers in obtaining timely and cost efficient connections to London’s electricity distribution infrastructure, model the economic impact of the current barriers and advise on options for removing them.” Similar issues, along with questions on the suitability of the regulatory framework governing investment into London’s electricity networks, were highlighted in a letter from the Mayor to energy Secretary of State, Ed Davey, released a few weeks ago.
When Boris met Ed…
October 2013: In the most recent of his weekly columns in the Daily Telegraph, the Mayor relates a story of a meeting he had with Labour leader Ed Miliband a few years ago, when Ed was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. The Mayor’s account is in part a response to the announcement Mr Miliband made at last week’s Labour Party Conference that, if Labour were to come into government after the 2015 general election, they would enact a 18 month ‘energy price freeze’ on energy company tariffs.
The Mayor account prove interesting reading: “I don’t think I have ever told you about my last official meeting with Ed Miliband. I must have somehow blanked it out, as one of those experiences that is just too harrowing to relate. It took place a few years ago, and my City Hall team was very excited in the run-up. We had an absolute corker of a plan, you see. We had the spreadsheets, the data, the options – and all we really needed was for Government to get behind it, and make sure that London got its fair share of the funding.
“We were going to launch a huge drive to improve the energy efficiency in the capital’s homes. We were going to hit all sorts of nails pretty smartly on the head: we were going to cut CO₂ emissions, and thereby stop the polar bears from plopping off the ice floes. We were going to cut NO₂ emissions from our noisome old boilers, and so improve air quality. We were going to help get thousands of people into work as retro-fitters – people who went around helping to insulate homes.
“As I told my team during the preparations, Britain might be lagging in some respects, but once our programme was under way we would certainly not be lagging in lagging. Above all, we were going to achieve the number one objective of the scheme: we were going to help cut the cost of heating people’s homes and help stabilise fuel bills.
“I was interested in the plan as a way of helping the planet and helping people in tough times. As for Ed – well, it was, frankly, a bit disheartening. He wasn’t remotely interested. He didn’t want to talk about retro-fitting and, as I gabbled away about a new legion of “boiler bunnies” bouncing up to your door, I was aware that a deep tranquillity had settled on the minister.
“He didn’t want to talk about cutting the cost of living. He just wanted to trade jokes about the forthcoming general election; and as one of my team put it later: “He was only vaguely in command of his brief and had no interest in achieving anything.” We wrote a long and optimistic follow-up letter, hoping that perhaps he had been taking it in. Nada. Not a peep.”
It would be great to read a response from the Labour leader of his account of this meeting…but it seems unlikely that one will be forthcoming anytime soon. It is true that national governments – of all political persuasions – have neglected to provide the tools to London-government to exploit in full its carbon-saving and sustainable energy potential. And a recent letter from the Secretary of State for Energy to the Mayor suggests a similar indifference continues today…
Shoreditch Heat Network Nominated for Green Award
September 2013: Hackney Homes has been nominated for an Inside Housing Green Performance Award for its recent refurbishment of the Shoreditch Heat Network. Further details on this scheme are provided on the following Vital Energi case study which describes how the company went about “replacing their ageing, inefficient and expensive gas and oil fired boilers with the London Borough of Hackney’s first council-owned Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant and heat network“. Further details are also in the following article in the Hackney Post.
Hackney Homes set out that the network installed is “More energy efficient than traditional methods of generation, the combined heat and power engine burns natural gas to generate electricity and uses the heat generated to supply heating and hot water.
Residents will receive individual heat metering prepayment cards, giving them the freedom to manage and budget for their own heating; reducing the financial burden on households whose energy consumption is low.”
New VNEB District Heating Feasibility Study released
September 2013: Building on the November 2012 Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea (VNEB) Energy Masterplan (7.8MB) (also see a previous post here on the earlier Opportunity Area Planning Framework for VNEB), a more detailed District Heating Feasibility Study has now been prepared for Wandsworth borough council and has been published online on the London Heat Map website.
The Nov 2012 study set out that the “Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area (VNEB OA) includes some of the highest density, large-scale development anywhere in London. As such, it offers huge potential for the development of a coherent, low carbon energy supply system.”
Key recommendations at the time included:
- To implement kick-start networks based around early loads in three locations, with routes identified as i. Lambeth ii. Central iii Battersea
- To continue dialogue with the new US Embassy development to show that a district energy network could be developed with benefits for the area and the Embassy.
- To open discussions to reinstate the hydraulic link to the Pimlico District Heating Undertaking Energy Centre – this is referring to a tunnel under the Thames which originally supplied waste heat from Battersea Power Station to the Pimlico District Heating system on the north side of the river (see more on this here and here).
Building on this the new 2013 District Heating Feasibility Study seeks to demonstrate the “commercial case both for individual developers and a centralised operator of a district heating network” examining opportunities for two potential heat network options “the developers’ non-networked approach (as expressed in individual site energy strategy documents)… Heat prices are then set to offer a fixed level of whole life cost benefit to developers connecting to the system. Second, the economic performance of heat delivery for the central scheme operator is demonstrated based on the heat prices identified from the developer perspective.”
Phasing of the build-out of the networks is considered alongwith an investment analysis of the different network options. Key to the recommendations sets out on page of the report is identifying a “project champion’ within the delivery vehicle to provide impetus and encouragement to the private sector to participate in the scheme”.
Posted in Decentralised Energy, Library, News
Tagged CHP, Community Heating, Decentralised Energy, Lambeth, Wandsworth
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Green Deal by London Parliamentary Constituencies
September 2013: New Green Deal data released by DECC last week (see earlier post for full details) provides for the first time Green Deal assessments undertaken in each parliamentary constituency. It turns out that constituency with the highest number of assessments was a London one – Poplar and Limehouse. Table 1b of the dataset records assessments over the period January to June 30 2013 for each of the 573 UK constituencies. Poplar and Limehouse reports the highest number with 462 assessments: however another London constituency also records the lowest number – ‘Cities of London & Westminster‘ with only 3. To put these numbers in context, from the dataset it can be calculated that the average number of assessments undertaken to per constituency date is 75.
A full list of London parliamentary constituencies and number of Green Deal assessments taken – from highest to lowest – is provided below. Continue reading…
Southwark Heat Network to go ‘live’ in next few months
September 2013: Detailed interview in Inside Housing on the new SELCHP district heating project. “Southwark Council is one of the few landlords with ‘pipes in the ground’ for a new district heating system. One of the scheme’s masterminds is councillor Barrie Hargrove.” Points raised include:
- The scheme is “looking at connecting before the winter period – October or November at the latest.”
- The captured waste heat from SELCHP will go through a heat network to an five existing Southwark housing district heating network replacing heat produced from existing gas boilers. “It’s cheaper for the tenants and residents living in 2,500 homes as well, particularly for the council leaseholders because they’ll be paying 10 per cent less than the price of gas.”
- The scheme “cost £7 million – Veolia have put the capital in, there’s no capital cost to the council. Council tenants and leaseholders pay Veolia for their heating bills. There will be a profit share between the council and Veolia.”
Read the full interview here.
Posted in Decentralised Energy, News
Tagged CHP, Community Heating, Southwark, Waste
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London seminar on measuring city GHG emissions
September 2013: C40 Cities and Siemens’ Infrastructure & Cities sector held a breakfast seminar in London earlier this month on methods to help improve the measurement of city greenhouse gas emissions. A C40 blog sets out discussions held on the day, which focussed around the Pilot Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Further information on work taken to date on this initiative with 33 cities is posted at the World Resources Initiative (WRI) and full detail on the design of the tool is on the the GHG protocol website.
London has had an inventory in place for around a decade. The latest London Energy and Greenhouse Gas Inventory (LEGGI) was updated for 2011 data just over a month ago and is posted on the London Datastore – details of which are in an earlier post here.
Green Deal & ECO in London – six months in
September 2013: Following the publication of the first quarterly set of detailed Green Deal and ECO (Energy Company Obligation) data back in July (details of which are outlined in the following post here) DECC has now published the much anticipated second quarter’s data set on 19 September 2013 (press release here).
In contrast to the regular monthly DECC datasets, the quarterly data provides a regional breakdown of i.Green Deal assessments undertaken ii. ECO measures installed and data on iii. Green Deal cashback vouchers offered, allowing some idea of how the Government’s new energy efficiency regime is progressing in London.
Posted in Energy Efficiency, News
Tagged ECO, Energy Efficiency, Enfield, Green Deal, Haringey, Kingston, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond, Waltham Forest
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