Tag Archives: Tower Hamlets

Olympic Schools Retrofit Project

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Admin

July 2012: The GLA has approved procurement of  “specialist technical services to supervise and inspect energy efficiency works… during the delivery of RE:FIT to 12 schools as part of the Olympic Retrofit Project. It is estimated that these services will cost no more than £60,000.”
The approval form sets out the history to this project, which arose as a consequence of the shortfall in carbon emission savings and renewable energy generated on the London Olympics site due to the failure to secure a viable large-scale wind turbine project.

“The Olympic Retrofit project is a CO2 reduction project that will be fully funded by an ODA grant. It will be delivered with zero costs to the GLA. The ODA set ambitious targets within its 2007  Sustainable Development Strategy including a target “To achieve a reduction in carbon emissions for the built environment of 50 percent by 2013”. This subsequently became legally binding under a Section 106 agreement [Schedule 11]. The planning conditions for the Park also include a twenty percent renewable energy target, which contributes to the overall fifty percent carbon target. So far, the ODA has invested in a suite of carbon mitigation measures including energy efficiency; district heating and cooling from the Energy Centre; and renewable energy...

“The strategy to meet the renewable energy target on the Olympic Park had originally relied on a 2MW wind turbine that had received outline planning permission and was expected to deliver thirteen percent renewable energy for the Olympic Park. Diminished commercial interest however meant that the plan had to be abandoned. With consideration of cost and programme, the ODA could only reasonably deliver a further two percent renewable energy through the installation of photovoltaic (PV) panels on the Multi-Storey Car Park and the Main Press Centre. The overall impact is a gap in the ODA carbon target of circa 1,100 tonnes of CO2. The ODA assessed the options to compensate for the onsite shortfall and a local retrofit project based on the RE:NEW and RE:FIT models proved to be the best value for money. The ODA have amended their Section 106 agreement allowing funding of £1,700,000 to be spent on this compensation project to retrofit homes and schools within the host boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Waltham Forest.The ODA is a ‘sunset organisation’ meaning it has a limited timeframe for operation (related to the London 2012 Games) and so it was necessary to seek a third party to deliver the programme onbehalf of the ODA. The ODA identified the GLA as best-fit to deliver through the existing RE:NEWand RE:FIT models (see Appendix 1 of MD839).

“A project led by the GLA, in conjunction with the boroughs, comprised of RE:NEW-style treatments in homes and RE:FIT works within schools will achieve this objective. The ODA has grant funded the GLA, and the GLA has entered into a grant agreements with each ofthe host boroughs to deliver the RE:NEW-style measures within homes. The GLA has called-off from the RE:FIT framework and entered into a service contract with EDF Energy. EDF Energy are currently undertaking an investment grade proposal for the portfolio of 12 schools.”

A recent update on the scope the RE:FIT project is available in the following June 2012 conference presentation – ‘The London Experience of RE:FIT’.  A tender was issued in June by Mayor for companies to be added to the RE:FIT procurement framework. More on RE:FIT here.

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Tower Hamlets launches energy co-operative

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Admin

June 2012: Tower Hamlets council has announced that it has established Tower Hamlets Energy  – “a large scale domestic power purchasing co-operative, which comes at a time when residents are facing huge increases in the cost of living.” The news release continues “Once the co-op is established it will provide additional benefits to members, including free and impartial advice on grants, insulation, fuel debt, and energy efficiency to help residents keep their bills down.

It will also offer access to energy efficiency resources and household renovation schemes. These plans go hand in hand with the council’s Decent Homes programme which will see all of the borough’s council homes improved to become more energy efficient and include modern kitchens and bathrooms by 2015.
The scheme is free to join, and residents will only be encouraged to switch suppliers if it offers a cheaper deal.”

To sign up visit my.towerhamlets.gov.uk
More information is available at www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/energy

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Solid Wall Insulation Project in East London

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Admin

June 2012: London has a high incidence of solid wall homes and as such has been poorly served by existing national energy efficiency schemes, which – with the exception of the troubled CESP programme – have not included support to solid wall insulation (SWI). The forthcoming Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation – scheduled to start in October of this year – are to change that, with the Government very strongly focusing on a significant uptake in SWI. Such projects are not without their difficulties – being much more complex to install and fairly invasive when insulation is fitted on the inside wall of solid wall homes (Internal Wall Insulation – IWI), hence, there is much to learn from projects currently underway. An External Wall Insulation (EWI) project has recently been completed on the Coventry Cross estate in Poplar, Tower Hamlets with the “energy efficient retrofit  expected to cut residents’ energy costs by as much as 25% while achieving greater comfort.” Further information is provided on the following news release. Further information can be found here.

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Put the over-75s on lowest energy tariff, urge Tower Hamlets councillors

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Admin

April 2012: From the East London Advertiser “Eight-out-of-10 pensioners in London’s deprived East End are paying too much for their gas and electricity, according to Tower Hamlets councillors. Now Labour members on the council are backing a national campaign for companies to put those over 75 on the cheapest tariff—by law.

“Cllr Rachael Saunders, Labour’s Adult Care spokesperson, said: “It’s no surprise that 80 per cent are paying over the odds with 400 tariffs on offer. “This rip-off must end—the big energy companies must make sure those over 75 are on the cheapest deal.” Nearly 8,000 in Tower Hamlets are paying £200 a year more than they need to, according to estimates. Labour is calling on the Government to legislate for energy companies to put the over-75s on the lowest tariff automatically.”

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London LEAF Winners

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Admin

7 February 2012: DECC yesterday announced on their Community Energy Online website that 155 community energy projects across the country have won a share of £5.1 million of funding from the Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF). The full list of Local Energy Assessment Fund (2nd Round) projects can be downloaded here. Only scant details of the winning projects are provided in the list however  zooming on London in DECC’s ‘interactive map showing winning community projects‘ provides further information on the 14 winning projects in London. A summary of this information follows below:

  • South Kenton Preston Park Residents Association who will run
    a local home energy assessment of the energy consumption in
    the area. Further information www.skppra.co.uk
  • Community Education Forum who will deliver a community-led energy
    saving programme aimed at the Bangladeshi, Somali and African and African Caribbean communities around Hammersmith and Fulham. Further information www.cefuk.co.uk
  • Sustainable Merton will train community members to carry out
    a community energy efficiency survey and train local champions already engaged in energy reduction to work on implementation. Further information at: www.sustainablemerton.org
  • EcoLocal based in Merton will work to create a mobile home energy
    efficiency demonstration with models of wall insulation, and many other home energy saving devices, to go to engagement events as means of communicating the Green Deal to householders. Further information at: www.thecei.org.uk
  • Zero Carbon Hackbridge in Sutton will set up an energy saving network with local community groups. Volunteers will be trained to enable them to spread the word about energy saving to their friends and neighbours and offer free appointments with an Energy Doctor. Further information here.
  • Hyde Farm Climate Action Network near Tooting will conduct a feasibility study for retrofit community heating and CHP into the neighbourhood. Further information at: here.
  • Brixton Energy Co-op will develop the Brixton Energy Solar 1, a flagship community investment project in the Loughborough Estate in Brixton, deploying an 80kw photovoltaic array on the roofs of the estate. They will also conduct feasibility studies, engage with the community and lay the groundwork for the further renewable energy cooperatives across South London. Further information at: www.transitiontownbrixton.org
  • Transition Peckham’s,Repair, Re-build, Renew, will deliver solid wall demonstration projects to five households, targeting those at risk of being in fuel poverty. Further information at here
  • Shrinking the Footprint is the Church of England’s national environment campaign. They will run the project in three Dioceses around Southwark where no work has yet been done using the sMeasure and iMeasure on-line energy management software tools developed at the University of Oxford. Further information at: www.shrinkingthefootprint.org
  • Waterloo Community Development Group will develop a youth-led programme to empower trained home energy assessors to lead on efficiency and sustainable retrofit, including the Green Deal and ECO, through an awareness and engagement programme in Waterloo. Further information at: www.wcdg.org.uk
  • Camden and Westminster Refugee Training Partnership (CandWRTP) will work with refugees, asylum seekers, BME individuals especially women and organisations to identify and collect data on current energy saving measures and behaviour through a survey and a public consultation event. Further information at: here.
  • Local Space Housing (LSH), based in Islington, will aim to develop a 2 year tenant-led energy efficiency strategy for the association.
  • The Sustainable Home Survey Company C.I.C. aims to create three Green Deal Ready community groups Further information here.
  • The London Borough of Tower Hamlets will work on resident engagement and discuss setting up an Energy Co-Op. This will lead on to a feasibility survey for such a Energy Co-Op and creation of a working group to take it forward.
  • Poplar HARCA and Tower Hamlets manage c.10,000 homes in Poplar. They will purchase home energy management systems to link energy data for analysis.  Further information: www.poplarharca.co.uk
  • St. John on Bethnal Green will undertake energy surveys here and in other local faith buildings as well as domestic properties and prepare a report on findings. Further information at: www.faithintowerhamlets.com
  • Hackney Co-operative Developments CIC will provide external wall and roof insulation to a large managed workspace building used by charities, social enterprises, co-operatives, cultural entrepreneurs and locally-owned start-ups. Further information at: www.hced.co.uk
  • The Arcola Theatre Dalston Energy Angels project will work in Hackney to create a network of members with different needs, skills and offers who can support each other to create and service demand in for energy efficiency and renewable energy. They will use the Theatre to educate people about electricity consumption and create a Waste Wood Heating Network to run a wood-fired boiler. Further information here.
  • The HEET Project works with older and vulnerable people across the
    borough of Waltham Forest in north east London. They research, develop and pilot innovative ways to achieve higher energy savings for fuel poor households. Further information at: www.theheetproject.org.uk
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RE:NEW to roll out across nine more London boroughs

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Admin

27 September 2011: The Mayor has announced today that homes in specific areas in Wandsworth, Croydon, Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Hounslow are the next to benefit from the RE:NEW energy efficiency programme.  To find out if you are in an area which is getting the RE:NEW treatment go to the postcode search facility here.

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Latest funding details on RE:NEW and RE:CONNECT

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Admin

8 September 2011: Details have just been released by the GLA of the funding to two key Mayoral low carbon activities, RE:NEW (improving the energy efficiency of homes) and RE:CONNECT (supporting the roll out of 10 Low Carbon Zones in London). Also recently released are details of the ODA funding to the GLA to roll-out  retrofit projects RE:NEW and RE:FIT across the Olympic boroughs. This is to compensate for shortfall in CO2 emissions as a result of the key renewable feature of the Olympics – a wind turbine – failing to go ahead. The ODA are hence allowing funding of £1.7m to retrofit homes and schools within the host boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Waltham Forest. The primary objective of the project is to deliver 1,300 tonnes of CO2 savings per annum through energy efficiency measures persisting for a lifetime of 10 years.

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New Hackney Waste to Energy Plant proposed

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Admin

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.

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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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Tower Hamlets

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Admin

Tower Hamlets Carbon Management Plan April 2009
Tower Hamlets Sustainable Energy Report July 2008

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Olympic Park to provide green power to Stratford homes and businesses

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Admin

30 Mar 2011: LDA report on their funding of £480,000 to install hot water pipework connecting the energy centres on the Olympic Park and Stratford City through to Stratford High Street and beyond. Read the full LDA news release here.

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Identifying sustainable energy options for your area

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Admin

15 February 2011: Local authorities are exploring opportunities and starting energy generation projects across the UK. With the right to sell electricity and set up energy companies, local authorities can earn money through financial incentives such as the feed-in tariffs and the renewable heat incentive. Renewable energy is an investment opportunity for local government. This Local Government Group publication highlights examples of councils and communities that are leading on energy generation. It explains what they did to start and fund energy projects and the benefits these projects have brought to their area and includes examples from Tower Hamlets, Islington and the City of London.

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