Posted in agriculture, biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged energy from Christmas trees on December 10, 2008| 3 Comments »
Just to warn you, this post is a bit trite and must have been done before, but here goes…
I reckon if you chipped all the Christmas trees in the UK and fed them into a biomass CHP , you’d provide enough zero carbon heat and electricity to supply about 25,000 new homes for the entire year.
If you can be bothered, here’s how I got there:
Posted in biofuel, biomass, energy, renewable energy, tagged wood chip on November 23, 2008| 5 Comments »
Til recently, I’d only dealt with the very end of the wood chip supply chain, the part where the chips arrive in a lorry, ready to be tipped into the chip store and burned in the boiler. But in connection with a number of new projects, I’ll be more closely involved in the whole woodchip lifecycle: chipping, drying, storing, delivery etc. And while getting to grips with some practicalities a few interesting quirks have come to light. Maybe not earth-shattering, but interesting just the same so I thought I’d note a couple down here.
First, when you buy wood chip don’t forget you’re paying for water. So if you hold on to that chip for any length of time in the right conditions it will dry further, reducing your tonnage and so increasing your cost per tonne. For example, if you buy a tonne of fresh wood chip at 55% moisture content for £45 and then store it under cover and let it dry out, here’s how the total mass and £/tonne will change as the chip dries to around 25% moisture.
Fig 1 – Total mass and £/t for a tonne of wood chip as it dries
(more…)
Posted in biofuel, biomass, climate change, feed in tariff, heat pumps, micro chp, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines, tagged Energy Bill, heat incentive, heat obligation, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, renewable heat on October 30, 2008| 1 Comment »
Last night, Lord Hunt came back with his amendments to the Energy Bill and, as promised, here’s an update. For electricity feed in tariff, he’s proposed:
On a heat incentive:
Posted in biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged michael willoughby, woodfuel magazine on October 15, 2008| Leave a Comment »
If you haven’t checked out Michael Willoughby’s biomass blog, Woodfuel Magazine, you should. It’s an RSS feed well worth subscribing to. Keep it up, Michael!
Posted in biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged building magazine, michael willoughby on August 26, 2008|
Posted in agriculture, biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged building magazine, michael willoughby, phil clark on August 21, 2008| 6 Comments »
There’s a short video on the Building website of Phil Clark and Michael Willoughby discussing biomass. At one point Michael claims “it’s not efficient to transport biomass more than 20 miles.” Holy smokes, where does this fact come from? I took a stab at the numbers and came up with a figure of 3000km (1900 miles) by truck before you lose the carbon benefit. That’s 100 times more than Michael’s figure. Looks like one of us (or possibly both) has got it wrong.
Posted in biomass, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged gasification, syngas, wood gas on August 5, 2008| 3 Comments »
On a project at Fontenergy we’re looking at some small scale gasifiers that claim to have overcome the traditional problems associated with wood gasification. While doing some research I came across this manual from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the US, with detailed instructions of how to convert your car, truck, or tractor to run on wood gas in the event of extended petroleum shortages. The practice of using wood gas in internal combustion engines was very common in Europe during the Second World War (apparently 95% of mobile farm machinery in Denmark ran on wood gas – I love Denmark) and this guide is aimed at preserving that knowledge.
I’m taking a sickie, grabbing the tool box and heading for the garage.
Posted in agriculture, biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, DER Calculation, energy, engineering, london, renewable energy, SAP, stamp duty exemption, sustainability, tagged biodiesel, Code 6, Renewables Obligation, RO, ROCs on July 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Love them or hate them, liquid biofuels are increasingly being put forward as a renewable fuel for CHP. Currently they’re eligible for ROCs and so appear to be considered renewable by BERR and OFGEM.
But when I spoke to the SAP team at BRE, not only did they confirm that liquid biofuels aren’t considered under SAP, they also said that “because of mounting doubts over the extent of emissions from biofuels”, you have to use the emissions factor for oil when carrying out your SAP calcs. Did they expect the treatment of biofuels to change for the 2010 review of SAP? Adamantly, they did not.
Then I called the BREEAM helpline. They told me that liquid biofuels also aren’t considered under the Code for Sustainable Homes. So no help in scoring points under ENE1 or ENE7.
So liquid biofuel CHP is eligible for ROCs but will do little for your Part L and Code requirements. Without achieving these requirements, the case for biofuel CHP for new buildings is severely undermined. Obviously this situation could change. With CLG on the lookout for ways to meet the 2016 zero carbon homes target, there might be considerable pressure applied in favour of making biofuel renewable under SAP. But for now the official line is that biofuels are not a solution for carbon reduction in new build.
Posted in biomass, chp, climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, london, renewable energy, SAP, sustainability, utilities, wind turbines, tagged DE, distributed energy, district heating, existing building on May 1, 2008| 4 Comments »
If you build to Passivhaus standard, there’s no point in putting in a wet heating system. In fact, the key to the economics of Passivhaus design is that a conventional heating system is rendered redundant: you’re supposed to use the resulting savings to help fund the efficiency measures. Instead of a boiler and radiators you might only need a small electric heating coil in your mechanical ventilation system.
Level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes is modelled on the Passivhaus standard. As a result, until the Code changes, you’re likely to see more and more developers trying to move towards electric heating systems. You might argue that given the quantities of electricity we’re talking about (15 kWh/m2.yr), even if you source the electricity from the grid, it’s no carbon catastrophe. Unless you consider the bigger picture.
Making new buildings zero carbon is an excellent requirement, but by focusing our efforts (and a hell of a lot of money) on ratcheting down the heat demand from new buildings, we throw away the huge opportunity of using new developments to slash emissions from existing stock. (more…)
Posted in biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, london, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, tagged CHPA, TCPA on March 31, 2008| Leave a Comment »
My first day back in London and I’ve spent the morning schmoozing at a publication launch just off the Mall. Five minutes out of my cattle stall and I’m already moving and shaking. It was an event to publicise the TCPA’s new document, Community Energy: Urban Planning for a Low Carbon Future, and it attracted quite a crowd including MPs Nick Hurd and Keith Hill.
During the presentations and panel discussion, most people in the room seemed to feel that local authorities have the pivotal role to play in the creation of low carbon distributed energy networks. I totally agree, but I think we were missing part of the picture.
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