Tag Archives: Kensington and Chelsea

A renewed focus for sustainability at the V&A

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Admin

January 2021: Blog post by Sara Kassam, who has recently taken on the enviable position of Sustainability Lead at the V&A, “a role created to embed sustainability within the institution“. Sara highlights a number of important areas relevant to the scope of work of the V&A which she will be concentrating on (including sustainability in the fashion industry) – but great to see that V&A have recently joined the London Climate Change Partnership (LCCP), which focuses on key adaptation actions that the city must act on in response to climate change. Sara also rightly highlights that the sites the museum are located in will need to take into the climate action plans set by their respective boroughs – specifically Kensington and Chelsea, Tower Hamlets and Newham.

A particular interesting energy aspect around Exhibition Road is the heat and power infrastructure based in sites such as the Natural History Museum (more here – but paywall) and Imperial College – and the opportunity to further extend the network in the area.

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‘Living wall’ could reduce air pollution by a fifth

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Admin

November 2016: “A pioneering “living wall” created at a Grade-I listed Mayfairdevelopment could reduce local air pollution by 20 per cent, it was claimed today. The 80sq m wall has been planted with grass, flowers and strawberries and installed on scaffolding at the St Mark’s building in North Audley Street. Developer Grosvenor and engineering firm Arup devised the wall, which they claim could help to cut harmful emissions and spruce up streets undergoing major construction projects.”

Full Evening Standard article here. See earlier post on GLA ‘Green Capital’ study here.

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London bottom of solar league table

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Admin

June 2013: Analysis by consultancy WSP in their report – ‘Solar Success: Space Not Cash the Key for Solar’ reflects previous posts by Energy for London (see here and here), highlighting London’s poor progress when compared to other regions in relation to the installation of solar photovoltaic systems.

The conclusions summarise the Feed in Tariff Installation report data, produced by energy regulator Ofgem, highlighting local authority installations per 10,000 households.

The analysis shows that London boroughs make up 23 of the 25 lowest ranking local authorities for solar installations and the entire bottom 10 in the national league table. Westminster, Tower Hamlets, the City of London, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Southwark are all found in the bottom five.

The report points out that: “Even The Orkneys at 232/10,000 houses comes 55th out of 760 on installation rates – higher than every local authority in Surrey, Kent and London – areas which receive much more sun than Scotland. To get most bang for buck, incentives should encourage the sunniest areas to get more panels than the furthest north. This, however, isn’t the case – the reality of politics over good green policies.”

Reasons for London’s limited success with PV  put forward include: “While we might think that cities should be happy hunting grounds for solar sales, in reality houses in towns are smaller, their roofs are more likely to be obscured and there’s also less owner occupation.”

Link to report here and directly downloadable here.

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Retrofit for the Future – London projects

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Admin

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.

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Event: Low Carbon Planning to Local Advantage

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Admin

March 2012: Free Carbon Trust half-day seminar which will focus on how local authorities and developers can use low carbon planning policies to their advantage, to leverage investment funds and shape their local infrastructure and environment in ways that support local plans and community needs. The event will take place at:
Kensington Town Hall on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 from 09:00 to 12:30. Further details here.

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South Kensington Heat and Cooling Network

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Admin

2 December 2011: Article in the latest issue of The Engineer providing detail on a novel new Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) system which will form part of a South Kensington Heat and Cooling Network. The project will potentially include the Natural History Museum, Imperial College, the V&A, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal College of Music and the Royal Geographical Society and “envisages an underground heating and cooling network beneath Exhibition Road in South Kensington linking some of the buildings occupied by the above list of prestigious institutions – which last year had a combined utility carbon footprint equivalent to five major hospitals.”

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London’s Power Stations

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Admin

30 June 2011: DECC’s annual Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) has just been published providing a welcome summer reading challenge for all energy-geeks… DUKES is principally concerned with national level energy statistics, and hence does not provide regional breakdowns in most instances (those are usually set out in separate articles in DECC’s quarterly journal Energy Trends). However, there a few issues areas worth looking at. In the first instance, it’s useful to be aware of what power plants operate within London itself, which in total contribute only a small percentage of London’s total electricity demand. The following London schemes are listed in the ‘Power Stations in the UK’ table in Chapter 5 of DUKES, to which some additional information/links have been added to below:

  • Barking Power – a gas fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) of 1000 MW (megawatts) generation capacity, which first started operating in 1994
  • Citigen (London) UK Ltd  – based in Charterhouse Street in Smithfields and owned and operated by E.ON, this scheme is fuelled by  gas and gas oil, and is rated 31 MW and first started operating in 1995. The unit operates in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) mode providing heating, and also cooling (via chilled water) distributed by a district energy network to a number of customers in the City area.
  • Thames Valley Power – a joint venture between EDF Energy and ATCO Power, this  Gas/Gas oil 15MW CHP has been operating since 1995 at Heathrow Airport.
  • London Heat & Power Company –  a 9MW gas CHP based at Imperial College which started operation in 2009.
  • Barkantine Heat & Power Company – A 1MW gas fuelled CHP with district heating system based on the Barkantine Estate in Tower Hamlets
  • Taylors Lane – Taylor’s Lane Open Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT) station, situated in Willesden is operated by E.ON and has two gas turbine units fired on natural gas with a total capacity of 132MW and began generating in 1979.
  • Enfield Power Station– E.ON owned and operated 400MW gas turbine scheme which began generating in 1999.
  • SELCHP – South East London Combined Heat & Power Ltd (SELCHP) 32 MW waste fired operated by Veolia Environmental Services began generating in 1994 – but only in power-only mode. Heat offtake opportunities (so the plant can finally operate in true-CHP mode) are currently being explored with Southwark Council.
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Carbon and Energy Fund

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Admin

July 2011: The Carbon and Energy Fund is a new £100M+ fund that is the sucessor to the Energy and Sustainability fund. The fund exists to fund and support projects in the NHS that meet a certain level of carbon savings per £1000 of investment required. Five projects worth £23m have signed up to tranche 1. This tranche is full and enters mini-competition in July 2011. The Fund intends to facilitate the delivery of 60 upgrades for NHS Trusts over the next 4 years in a series of tranches – details of the next funding tranche are here.
A number of London-based case studies of energy saving actions previously taken are available including:
Royal Free Hospital, London
Natural History Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum London
Kingston Hospital

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Kensington and Chelsea

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Admin

RBKC Health, Environmental Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee
Climate Change pages
RBKC Climate Change Strategy 2008-2015 – December 2008
Carbon Management Programme Plan – August 2009
Green ICT Strategy – December 2008

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First certified passivhaus retrofit

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Admin

2 March 2011: Octavia Housing have retrofitted an 1850s terraced house in a Holland Park conservation area to strict Passivhaus levels. Read more on the Passivhaus project here.

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