September 2012: Croydon and Carbon Trust practical guide specifically intended to help Eco-schools to deliver immediate energy cost savings when they are working on the Energy topic.
1 October 2012: DECC’s latest issue of Energy Trends includes new regional statistics on renewable electricity (not energy) generation. The article – Renewable electricity in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England in 2011– highlights (in Table 1) that 5,657 renewable electricity generating sites were operating in London as at the end of 2011. Not surprisingly the vast majority of these were photovoltaics (PV) – 99.48% to be precise – with a further 58 renewable technology schemes registered (this however compares with only 16 (non-PV) schemes as registered in last year’s statistics). The number of PV installations has risen more than fivefold compared to the number (1,044) in place at the end of 2010.
More importantly in terms of capacity and output, the following two tables (copied below) reveal that in 2011:
Following the level of overall renewable capacity added, there’s been a 60% increase in the amount of renewable electricity generated, rising from 385.7 GWh (gigawatt-hours) in 2010 to 617.6 GWh in 2011 (see table below).
The article provides further analysis and comparisons of London’s output as compared to the rest of the English regions, which, as is already well documented, remains modest due to the limitations the capital has in exploiting key renewable technologies such as wind and landfill. Chart 12 in the article (copied below) however provides some cause for optimism as it illustrates that changes made to the national policy framework for renewables over the past few years- particularly with the advent of Feed in Tariffs (FITs) and Renewable Obligation (RO) Banding – is finally supporting London to take a small but positive step forward in terms of its renewable contribution, after several years of only limited progress.
1 October 2012: The ‘Pimlico District Heating Undertaking (PDHU)’ was one of the many sites available to be viewed by the public on Open House Day over the past weekend.
As CityWest Homes website sets out “PDHU is owned by Westminster City Council and managed by CityWest Homes. It provides clean, safe and reliable energy to approximately 3,200 properties and 56 local businesses. It was the first of its kind in Britain and started life in a pump house using waste heat from Battersea Power Station to provide heating and hot water to one local housing estate.
The system was upgraded in 2006 with a £6.9million boiler plant added to the system which will be able to heat an additional 1,400 homes. This will lead to further savings on nearly 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year – the equivalent of taking 1,000 cars a year off the roads of London. The upgrade was paid for by the Community Energy Programme. It includes two combined heat and power engines and has been built on the site of the original pump house.”
As a recent Arup research project highlights there are hopes that PDHU could at some time in the near future, connect to the nearby Whitehall District Heating Scheme.
September 2012: The Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA) and the Carbon Trust are running a free seminar for university and higher education energy managers to discuss the benefits and practicalities involved in CHP, district heating and trigeneration technologies. The all day event will be held on 5 October 2012 at SOAS, University of London, Russell Square, London , WC1H 0XG. Full details on the event and how to book here.
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September 2012: DECC have issued a consultation proposing the adoption of a new definition for fuel poverty. This follows an extensive review by Professor John Hills of LSE, initiated by the Government in 2010, who reported to Government earlier this year, … Continue reading
27 September 2012: DECC’s latest issue of Energy Trends follows up from national Combined Heat and Power (CHP) dataset, published in July’s Digest of UK Energy Statistics (Chapter 7) (see also CHPA’s press release for further information on this), to present the data in a regional format, providing some detail on the use of CHP in London. The article – Combined Heat and Power in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England in 2011 – can be downloaded here.
A number of things can be observed.
Table 1 highlights that there are 212 CHP schemes in London currently registered with the Government’s CHP Quality Assurance programme (more details at www.chpqa.com). This means that these generation plant have provided details of their operation to the QA programme and qualify for the benefits of being classed as ‘good quality’ such as exemption from the Climate Change Levy. A full list of where these 212 schemes are not unfortunately in the public domain, however, DECC do keep a subset of these schemes (32 listed at the time of writing) on their CHP database (run the region report for London). Additional schemes should also be able to be identified on the London Heat Map. Note – there are likely to be more than 212 schemes – small scale (say around 100kWe and below) CHP engines may not bother registering with the CHPQA as the financial benefits of the CCL exemption may only be modest for such plant.
409 GWh of electricity were produced by these 212 CHP schemes in 2011. This represented 1.8% of the total CHP-electricity generated in England, and only 1.5% of electricity generated in the UK.
Table 2 however appears to show that, since 2009, there has been a net growth of 50 CHP schemes in London (ie some CHP plant may have been decommissioned – the actual number of new plant isn’t provided – only the net figure of 50). There has been a considerable revision of the numbers since last year’s dataset (for which, see story here) which reported that 188 Good Quality CHP schemes were operational in London as at the end of 2010, as compared with the 158 seen in the table above. Overall a confusing picture!
More importantly, there appears to have been a massive downward revision in the overall CHP capacity operating in London:
September 2012: This month the Mayor has been asked questions in relation to:an update on the evaluation of Mayor’s domestic energy efficiency programme RE:NEW; the source of the new cable car energy supply; the promotion of sustainable biofuels in London and the impact of biofuels as a result of the Government’s proposed changes to the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation including those schemes using recycled catering oil; the Government’s proposed changes to the support for Anaerobic Digestion in the Renewables Obligation and it’s consequent impact on delivering such schemes, including those supported by the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWaRB); the number of companies which have signed up to the Mayor’s Green 500 programme; the number of ‘green jobs’ secured under the Mayor’s RE:NEW and RE:FIT programmes; the growth in low carbon goods and services in London; whether the GLA Group procurement strategy has helped create good environmental management and practices; an update on the ‘Prospectus for London the Low Carbon Capital’ study; details of EU JESSICA funding to London; potential skills shortages as we move to a low carbon economy in London; an update on the Mayor’s Retrofit Academy programme; building ‘carbon thinking’ amongst London’s businesses; promoting low carbon requirements in major developments; an update on LWaRB anaerobic digestion plants supported in London; Pinkham Way waste processing plant; problems association with AD projects failing; changes to support the uptake of AD; the number of buildings treated under the Mayor’s RE:FIT programme;
Previous questions to the Mayor can be found here.
September 2012: Camden have published new guidance for home owners in Dartmouth Park who want to make changes to improve the efficiency of their homes. Camden says that the “guidance shows that historic homes of the types found in Camden’s conservation areas can be made more energy efficient, often through relatively minor and easy changes, and still retain their special character and appearance. Where major energy efficiency measures are required, the guidance sets out how and where these are likely to be acceptable”.
Dartmouth Park Conservation Area is largely typified by houses with solid brick external walls, without a cavity. In terms of the forthcoming Green Deal and ECO, both of which strongly support the greater use of solid wall insulation (SWI) the guidance sets out that ‘External Wall Insulation’ (EWI) proposals will need planning permission, but approval is not needed for Internal Wall Insulation (IWI). For EWI the guidance goes on to say[p16] that:
A comprehensive street-by-street breakdown of what will be acceptable in terms of energy efficiency improvements is then provided (!) and pages 33-36 provide further guidance on specific aspects of EWI.
11 September 2012: A recent parliamentary question highlights the extent the Londoners continue to use the local energy supply company EDF Energy (who took over London Electricity fully in 2006) as their electricity supplier. The response reports on data from August 2010 and indicates that EDF Energy has a market share of 74% of London’s electricity market. In terms of dual fuel contracts, British Gas holds the largest market share in London across the ‘big six’ at 40%.
September 2012: The Retrofit for the Future programme’s Low Energy Buildings database website has recently been updated. The database is a repository of low-energy building information created to help inform the planning and development of low energy new build and refurbishment. The website allows users to browse projects in the database, and create and edit projects if you have a log-in.
A projects map highlights schemes funded across the UK and direct links to the 11 London based retrofit schemes follow below.
Eco Hub at Lordship Recreation Ground, Haringey
Hawthorn Road – Metropolitan Housing Trust, Haringey
Focus House
The Muse – Islington
Mayville Community Centre
Tower Hamlets Passivhaus Retrofit
Camden Passivhaus – London’s first certified Passivhaus
PassivHaus Retrofit – Princedale Road
Lena Gardens
Hounslow Passivhaus Retrofit – Grove Road
One Planet Sutton Retrofit
Further information on the ‘Retrofit for the Future’ programme and evaluation of the projects submitted can be viewed here.
September 2012: SuperHomes are open once again to the public to visit in on the weekend of 22 and 23 September 2012 . SuperHomes are older properties renovated by their owners to reduce carbon emissions by at least 60%. These include Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian and more modern properties. As the Superhomes website says “Attending an open day is a great way to get a relaxed touch and feel experience of what it means to live with green technologies in a dramatically improved older home like this. It is also a chance to speak to a homeowner with first hand experience of both the benefits and challenges of a major refurbishment project.”
Links to homes available to book to visit in London are provided below:
Camberwell
Belsize Park
Bertram Street, Camden
Chester Road, Camden (22nd only)
St Augustine’s Road, Camden (23rd only)
Hanwell
Muswell Hill
Kingston (22nd only)
Kingston upon Thames, and
Lewisham (23rd only)
September 2012: The UCL-Energy Institute runs free, public events throughout term time on a wide range of energy related topics. Full details of forthcoming seminars are listed here.