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Renewable Energy
Supporting Renewable Energy through Business Rates
August 2011: The issue of how the Government’s proposals for business rate retention by local authorities could help fund sustainable energy initiatives has been highlighted previously on this website, and on 18 July, CLG’s consultation paper, Local Government Resource Review: Proposals for Business Rates Retention sets out the detailed proposals for a new rates retention scheme to replace the current local government finance system. Supporting this consultation paper, the Government has now published eight technical papers exploring in further detail how councils would be allowed to keep locally generated business rates, which should help enable them to borrow against future rate income.
In addition to this potential new investment stream into energy projects, included amongst the technical papers is a specific Government’s proposal to support communities hosting renewable energy projects by allowing them to keep the business rates generated from such projects. The paper covers issues such as:
- the types of renewable energy that would be covered by the proposals
- what is meant by a “new renewable energy project”
- how different scenarios of renewable energy projects would be dealt with
- who would be responsible for determining whether a project was covered by the scheme and, therefore, not taken into account in the setting of any levy; and
- how the business rates from a renewable energy project might be split between different authorities in two-tier areas
Posted in News, Renewable Energy
Tagged CLG, Finance, Local Authorities, Renewable Energy
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New Hackney Waste to Energy Plant proposed
August 2011: An article in this weekend’s Hackney Citizen highlights the recent consultation by Tower Hamlets on the Fish Island Area Action Plan (AAP), which includes consideration of a new waste to energy plant.
The Fish Island AAP states: “The Council requires a new waste management facility in the Borough to handle approximately 150,000 tonnes of waste per annum and is exploring the potential to use emerging technologies to generate energy from the waste.” and that
“There is an opportunity to develop a new green waste to energy facility in Fish Island south” which could be connected to “the waste management facility to the Olympic Energy Centre to create an area-based zero or low carbon energy network for new developments in Fish Island.”
The article goes on to quote London Assembly’s Darren Johnson who says of the proposal: “We need to look at new ways of dealing with waste as we cannot continue sending it off to landfill sites outside London. But getting the right sort of technology is absolutely vital. Mass burn incinerators are an outdated polluting technology and we certainly don’t want to see any more of those in London. There is a role for more sophisticated energy from waste plants, particularly anaerobic digestion which produces green energy from food waste.”
The consultation includes a specific question on the proposal asking: Do you agree with the principle of a borough waste to energy facility located in Fish Island? If so, how should a site be identified? – however this phase of consultation finished on 15 July 2011.
Posted in News, Renewable Energy
Tagged Olympics, Planning, Renewable Energy, Tower Hamlets, Waste
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Thames Water to become Britain’s biggest solar power generator
August 2011: Thames Water is aiming to become Britain’s biggest on-site solar power producer after signing a deal to install photovoltaic systems large enough to cover 15 football pitches at three key sites in London. A 450kW array of solar panels, commissioned last week at Beckton (Newham), will generate 385 MWh a year on average, while 150kW arrays installed at Crossness (Bexley) – where a 2.5MW wind turbine is also planned to be installed – and Walton will each generate 133 MWh a year on average, enough to power 140 average-sized homes.
Once the Crossness array is expanded to its full potential of 1,700 kW, it will generate an additional 1,400 MWh a year on average. And once the Walton array is expanded to its full potential of 3,000 kW, it will generate an additional 2,500 MWh per year.
Air Source Heat Pumps – Friend Or Foe?
August 2011: The AECB have posted on their website a really useful survey of Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP), a technology which is increasingly being installed in London buildings. The article addresses many of the common questions raised about ASHPs and looks “at possible reasons why the reality seems to have fallen short of the claims, reveals some common pitfalls and advises how to avoid (or remedy) them, and offers some pointers to assessing when a heat pump might be good option – and when something else might be the better option. “
Latest Guidance for FIT Generators
August 2011: Ofgem document for renewable generators with a capacity over 50kW up to 5MW that want to benefit from the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme. It provides an overview of the scheme’s eligibility criteria and explains the process of seeking accreditation.
In the market for green energy
July 2011: As highlighted previously, fruit and vegetable traders in Ridley Road market, Hackney, are collecting their green waste to feed into an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant as part of a trial between the AD specialist Biogen Greenfinch and Hackney, which is about to be rolled out across more of the council’s markets. More detail on this project is provided in this interesting article just published by edie waste news and available here.
Posted in News, Renewable Energy
Tagged Anaerobic Digestion, Hackney, Renewable Energy
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Recycling Cooking Oil in London
July 2011: The Committee on Climate Change are currently undertaking a review of bioenergy and took a trip to have a look at the work of Uptown Oil who collect used cooking oil from about a thousand sources in London – including Young’s pubs, Selfridges and Hackney Borough Council – to produce biodiesel.
A Business Green article published last week highlighted that Carluccio’s Restaurant chain – which has around 20 cafes in London – announced that it has signed a deal with biofuel firm Convert2Green to be converted into biofuel. Other biofuel suppliers in London include:
Uptown Oil based in Borough
Pure Fuels based in Edmonton
Proper Oils who work with a Croydon Council collection scheme
Uptown have also been selected to supply biofuel to PWC’s new HQ whose energy will be partially supplied by a trigeneration scheme (combined heat and power with cooling) – one of London’s only biofuelled CHP schemes.
Figures for the amount of cooking oil collected in London and be turned into biofuel do not appear to be available, however, a study reported on by the London Assembly in 2009 indicated that 37,000 tonnes of used cooking oil is available in London and the DfT’s latest biofuel statistics state that the “largest single feedstock for UK biofuel was used cooking oil (314m litres, 26% of total biofuel supplied)“. London’s Draft Waste Municipal Waste Strategy commits that the “Mayor will, through his Food to Fuel Alliance, aim to catalyse at least five exemplar food waste projects in London…the Alliance will support food waste projects that generate renewable heat and power (including transport fuel), and compost material for local use.”
Posted in News, Renewable Energy
Tagged Biofuels, Croydon, Enfield, Renewable Energy, Southwark, Waste
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London Misses out on Renewable Heating Grants
21 July 2011: After mentioning yesterday that DECC had not as yet launched their renewable heat grants programme, this morning I see a press release announcing the start of the Renewable Heat Premium Payment’ scheme. However, DECC have now stated that the scheme will be mainly focused on households not heated by mains gas – so the opportunities for Londoners to benefit will be greatly reduced. In short the scheme will provide:
- £15 million in total to support up to 25,000 installations; and
- Householders will need to ensure they have basic energy efficiency measures in place before applying
From 1st August, grants for the following technologies will be available:
- Ground Source Heat Pump – £1250 grant (for homes without mains gas heating)
- Biomass boiler – £950 grant (for homes without mains gas heating)
- Air source heat pump – £850 grant (for homes without mains gas heating)
- Solar thermal hot water panels – £300 grant (available to all households regardless of the type of heating system used)
So Londoners who wish to take advantage of this scheme and install solar thermal panels (that is – if they’re not thinking of using their roofspace for PVs…) should go to the Energy Saving Trust’s website who will administer the scheme. Further information is also available on the RHPP DECC factsheet here.
A Simple Guide to the Renewable Heat Incentive
July 2011: Ofgem have just issued a leaflet setting out the key aspects of the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme for prospective participants. DECC have yet to announce the start of the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) – a subsidy for a range of renewable heat technologies that can be used in homes – which will be used as a bridge until the full domestic-sector RHI kicks off in October 2012 alongside the Green Deal. This Ofgem brochure just mentions that “DECC will release further information about the RHPP shortly.”
Community projects impacted by the feed-in tariff review
July 2011: Friends of the Earth have provided a really interesting update on a number community energy projects using renewable energy technologies, whose viability has now been threatened as a result of the Government’s FIT review and its reduction in the tariff rates for >50kW photovoltaic projects.
Renewable Energy Roadmap
July 2011: Alongside the publication of the White Paper on Tuesday [see story below], the Government also published a ‘Renewable Energy Roadmap‘ which “outlines a plan of action to accelerate renewable energy deployment – to meet the target of 15% of all energy by 2020 ” – now said to be a four-fold increase over current levels of renewable energy consumption.
Government has highlighted before the importance of local authorities in helping support the growth of renewable energy and has also recently changed legislation to ensure that local authorities can themselves play their part as renewable energy developers (see letter from Chris Huhne to all leaders and chief executives of local authorities) .
The 100 page Roadmap is, however, incredibly ‘lite’ on the contribution that local authorities can play, pointing only to the work funded by DECC to produce nine regional studies to help “identify and maximise opportunities for the deployment of renewable and low carbon energy technologies in their area.” The Roadmap goes on to state that “Local Authorities and communities will be able to use the results of these assessments to inform development of their local and neighbourhood development plans.” [page 24]
and that:
“While the focus of the project has been to present the results at sub-regional and sub-national scales, much of the original data can be interrogated down to Local Authority level. This original data is available to Local Authorities to undertake their own analysis.” [page 25]
DECC goes on to say that one of their priority actions will be to:
” …Reform the local planning system in England to ensure that it supports economic growth, give communities a greater say and stake in development, and help local authorities and communities to identify opportunities for the deployment of renewables using analysis from regional studies.” [page 30]
Seven of the nine assessments for England are now available through the DECC web site – London’s renewable energy assessment study is awaiting publication, anticipated to be sometime later this year.
Posted in Library, News, Renewable Energy
Tagged DECC, Local Authorities, Planning, Renewable Energy
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£16 million Waste Infrastructure Fund for London
July 2011: The London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) LWARB has opened its second Waste Infrastructure fund. The deadline for Expressions of Interest (EOI) forms is midday on Friday 30 September for projects that meet the two following criteria:
• An £11 million waste infrastructure loan fund for projects that meet the strategic requirements of LWARB. LWARB has a particular interest in projects located outside of east London* as well as those projects that help to bridge the capacity gap in the capital.
• A £5 million programme which will fund innovative waste solutions, giving London the opportunity to showcase technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells, gas to grid, and waste derived transport fuels. This programme will include brokering partnerships with various parties such as technology providers, off-takers and fuel suppliers.