Tag Archives: Universities

SOAS becomes first community energy university

November 2016: Congratulations to student group Solar SOAS who successfully achieved their crowd funding goal earlier this year raising £22,000 for their PV project, which has now successfully installed 114 solar panels on the roof of their university building.

Funds were raised from SOAS itself, the students’ union and individual donors, and Solar SOAS co-founder Hannah Short said that crowdfunding the project provided “a rare opportunity for interested stakeholders to become part of a climate solution”.

Solar SOAS are having a ‘solabration’ tomorrow evening at the Brunei Gallery to formally launch the project – full details of which are posted here.

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Mayor announces 2013 Low Carbon Prize

14 June 2013: The Mayor presented £20,000 to the winners of this year’s Low Carbon Prize, William Hines and Rachel Clemo, both students at UCL. The press release highlights that the winning entry “‘Reseed’, is an idea to remove the need for paper receipts and allow users to access their receipts online using their smartphones. Receipts are costly to produce, easy to lose, and add to consumer waste, so the new system would save money for retailers who would be encouraged to donate a percentage of their savings towards planting more trees. The students receive not only the title of winners of the Mayor’s Low Carbon Prize but the opportunity to turn their idea into a commercial reality with cash and practical support.”

A full list of runners up can be seen here. Many congratulations to the winners William Hines and Rachel Clemo – further information on their initiative can be found at reseed.co.uk

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New Energy Centre for Energy Epidemiology

January 2013: University College London announced that it has been awarded funding to establish the UCL-Energy Centre for Energy Epidemiology which “will focus on providing an evidence base for government and industry to support end use energy reduction across buildings and transport, helping to deliver the UK’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050.”  ‘Energy Epidemiology – it says here –  is apparently “the systematic use of measured data to illuminate the causes of energy use and of changes in energy use.  The approach has a long history in health research, but has not so far been applied, at scale, to the study of energy.” So now you know!

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CHP in Universities – Free Seminar

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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UCL Energy Institute Public Seminars

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.

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Designing Buildings for Future Climate – Conference

June 2012: An interesting one-day conference to be held at the Building Centre on Tuesday 12 June focusing on how future buildings will have to adapt as a result of climate change. The projects were supported through the Technology Strategy Board (TSB)  Design for Future Climate: Adapting Buildings competition which funded 50 projects to assess climate change risks and develop adaptation strategies across a variety of building types including housing, schools, offices and university buildings.

A number of London projects were included in the project and will be highlighted during the day including: Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Phase 2b, London Bridge Station Redevelopment, Andrew Ewing Primary School (Hounslow), the London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Greenwich, and 100 City Road.

Attendance is free – further details of the event including agenda can be viewed here.

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London to host new Institute for Sustainable Connected Cities

May 2012:  Energyefficiencynews.com reports that” Computer giant Intel has announced a five year collaboration with two UK universities to use smart technology to tackle urban issues like energy supply and environmental problems.  The  Intel Collaborative Research Institutes (ICRI) with Imperial College London and University College London will turn the capital city into a test bed for an urban cloud platform to manage realtime data to help deal with energy and water supplies, extreme weather events and transport, as well as other issues.

Imperial College say that the “new London-based institute will be Intel’s first research centre and global hub dedicated to exploring how technology can support and sustain the social and economic development of cities worldwide. The launch of the centre was unveiled at an event in 10 Downing Street.” Further information can be found on the following Intel news release and blog.

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KX CHP

May 2012: The first of  three 2 MW Combined Heat and Power (CHP) engines  for the 67 acre King’s Cross Central development has been installed at the on-site energy centre. In total the CHP capacity when finally installed will supply 100% of the development’s heat and offset almost 80% of its electrical power demand. The news release sets out that “Once commissioned, the CHP engine will not only generate electricity, which will be fed into the grid network, but will also provide heat for the development wide District Heating System (DHS). All of the 70 buildings at King’s Cross, from the University of Arts to the Camden Council building, BNP Paribas Real Estate’s new offices and the Great Northern Hotel, will be connected to the DHS When complete carbon emissions are expected to be a third less than ‘business as usual’ and up to 60% less than 2001 levels.”

Further information on the energy strategy for Kings Cross central here and main energy assessment (as set out for the planning application in 2005) can be downloaded here.

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Croydon Zero Carbon Homes research

April 2012: Tenants in Croydon are to take part in a research project, being undertaken by Sheffield Hallam University, to show how residents are responding to new zero carbon energy alternatives such as renewable house-based energy, high insulation and air proofing, and district heating and biomass fuel. The research will also will also quiz landlords and housing associations to provide a full picture of how the UK’s housing market is facing up to the challenge of zero carbon homes by 2016.  Read further details here.

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Update on LEEF

February 2012: A quick update on the London Energy Efficiency Fund (LEEF)

  • The Fund has £100m to invest in energy efficiency retrofit to public sector-owned / occupied buildings
  • LEEF is also able to invest through private / joint venture entities (such as ESCOs or landlords) delivering energy efficiency works
  • Loan rates and terms are extremely flexible and competitive

You can benefit from LEEF if:

  • You are undertaking a refurbishment programme / retrofit project in a London-located public / voluntary sector building (such as a university, museum, hospital, school, local authority, social housing provider, etc)
  • Your works will deliver in the region of 20% energy saving / carbon benefits
  • Your funding requirement is at least £1m; ideally between £3m and £20m

Further information at www.leef.co.uk

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Survey of urban energy projects in the UK

February 2012: The  Challenging Lock-in through Urban Energy Systems (CLUES) project will “critically assess the development of decentralised energy systems in urban areas.” Researchers are currently carrying out a survey of urban energy initiatives which is to be carried out in two stages between February and April 2012.  Each stage requires around 15 minutes and can be completed at a convenient time. A summary of the results will be made freely available.

Who should take part?
Planners, policy makers, and urban designers as well as individuals working in the third sector who have been involved with projects or policy to develop energy generation (electricity and renewable heat) and/or increase energy efficiency in UK towns and cities.

How can you take part?
Simply go to the website http://www.tinyurl.com/urbanenergyclues1 – before 13th February. Please contact Graeme Sherriff at the University of Manchester for more information.

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‘Low Carbon London’ Update

January 2012: London distribution network operator UK Power Connections was awarded funding under Ofgem’s Low Carbon Network Fund to undertake a smart metering project with a range of stakeholders entitled ‘Low Carbon London’ (more of which here). The Executive Summary of their latest Six Monthly Report has just been posted on Ofgem’s website here. The update mentions that:

  • A comprehensive campaign to identify 500 trial smart meter customers in London Low Carbon Zones has been undertaken and 263 meters have been so far installed (more of which here).
  • Partner organisation Imperial College has opened the ‘Low Carbon London Learning Lab’ (more of which here and here).
  • A series of ‘innovative DNO-level Demand Response Contracts have been signed’ – see earlier post for details on this.

The Low Carbon London project will run from January 2011 until June 2014.  UK Power Networks will work with Transport for London and electric vehicle owner groups to explore how best to meet demand from the country’s anticipated growth in the use of electric vehicles, and the impact of locally generated green power on the electricity network will be tested to ensure fast and cost-effective grid connections can be provided in the future. Imperial’s Low Carbon London Learning Laboratory will analyse the data from all the trial installations

The update helpfully states that – “The highly inter-dependent nature of the detailed design work requires a high level of intricate configuration management to ensure all internal and external inter-dependencies are accurately maintained as the overall and individual component designs progress and mature” – which I’m sure enlightens us all…

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