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Archive for the ‘energy’ Category

carbon and the credit crunch

Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , , , on July 10, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Developers are taking a hard look at their pipelines in an effort to find savings and many projects are grinding to a halt. Redrow, Taylor Wimpey, Bovis, Barratts, Persimmon – each laying off thousands from their workforce. There’s no doubt that the credit crunch is taking a deep bite out of the construction sector. In addition, oil and energy prices are exacerbating the situation, rising continuously for the foreseeable future.

All this comes at a time when the UK is looking to new build projects to help it meet a significant proportion of its carbon and renewable energy targets, some of which are legally binding and carry fiscal penalties for failure.

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nuclear or CHP? Another no brainer

Posted in chp, climate change, energy, tagged , , on June 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »

A Poyry report out today finds that by installing new CHP at just nine industrial sites around the country we could meet the electricity demand of 2/3 of the UK households and reduce gas imports by half. CHP is cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient than nuclear with no toxic legacy. It’s also much much faster to deploy. So shall we?

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BERR’s reaction to Citiworks: bad news for small generation in the UK?

Posted in chp, climate change, energy, micro chp, private wire, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, wind turbines, tagged , , , on June 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday BERR and OFGEM released proposals for changing the way the electricity regulations work with regard to distributed energy generation. This is particularly important because it’s BERR’s first public reaction to the Citiworks ruling by the European Court of Justice two weeks ago.

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no Code 6 without MVHR

Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, renewable energy, SAP, sustainability, tagged , , , , , , on June 6, 2008| 8 Comments »

For a while, I have suspected that the thermal efficiency requirements for Code 6 would almost certainly require MVHR. But I was always dimly aware that I hadn’t actually done the numbers and so couldn’t be sure. Now I am: no MVHR means no Code 6.

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new transport fuel strategy is off the rails

Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines, tagged , , , , on May 28, 2008| 2 Comments »

Listening to Radio 4 on my phone on the way home I heard the evening news: Gordon Brown, keen to show he’s doing all he can to ease the fuel crisis, has taken two decisive actions.

First he’s met with North Sea oil producers to urge them to pump more petroleum from their fields, which have been in decline since 1999. He apparently managed to persuade these producers to up their output by promising them a tax break (i.e. subsidy), which will make costly enhanced recovery techniques economically viable.

The total additional output is expected to amount to about 50 million barrels, enough to keep the world running for about 13 hours. Given that petroleum is a fungible globally traded commodity (there’s no such thing as local prices as the oil price is entirely determined by global factors), this tiny drop in the bucket won’t do anything to lower the price of fuel here in the UK or anywhere else. And you’ve got to think that if $130 a barrel wasn’t enough to stimulate recovery, maybe that subsidy would be better spent elsewhere. After all, given the record profits posted by oil companies this year, I think we could find one or two other technologies more deserving of a break.

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you mean oil’s not infinite?

Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , , on May 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Weird reporting in the Observer today on the IEA’s upcoming study on the narrowing margin between oil demand and oil availability. Two snippets:

The International Energy Agency has ordered an inquiry into whether the world could run out of oil, The Observer has learnt.

Wow, hard hitting stuff from the IEA (and the Observer). I hadn’t realised it was possible that we wouldn’t run out of oil. Finite resource, projected exponential growth in demand. You might have thought it was a no brainer. I appreciate that there are some convincing arguments out there for why peak oil might still be several years off but I hadn’t realised there was anyone out there pushing the view that oil is infinite.

IEA researchers have warned that even if there is enough oil under the ground, which is probable, supply difficulties could emerge because national oil companies and Western multinationals have failed to invest sufficiently…

So the IEA says there is probably enough oil under the ground? Enough for what? To run the world forever? To avoid peak oil in 2012? What?

It’s just odd that the Observer would write in such a vague and useless way about a topic that’s tied for first on the end-of-the-world watch list.

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feed in tariffs coming to the UK?

Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, wind turbines on May 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »

From out of nowhere, twice in one week, there have been indications that a feed in tariff is on the way. First, at Tuesday’s PRASEG (Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group) meeting, BERR and DEFRA both hinted that a feed in tariff would replace the renewables obligation for installations under 50kW. Then on Thursday at Think08, Hillary Benn delivered the same message (thanks to Phil for pointing that out).

So how soon might this happen? Probably not as quick as we’d like as it’s likely to require a change to the RO legislation. But until then hopefully small generators will be able to console themselves with double ROCs.

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using new schemes to decarbonise existing buildings

Posted in biomass, chp, climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, london, renewable energy, SAP, sustainability, utilities, wind turbines, tagged , , , 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…)

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heat meters are a no-brainer

Posted in climate change, energy, engineering, sustainability, uncategorized, utilities on April 10, 2008| 10 Comments »

At work I’m helping a large housing association upgrade their existing heating networks to save carbon and reduce costs to occupants. There are various steps to take: upgrading boilers, re-insulating distribution pipework, considering CHP, and so on. But the single most effective thing you can do on these schemes is to install heat meters.

Doing some background research, I rang up the very friendly and forthcoming Dick Bradford, the driving force behind the hugely successful biomass community heating schemes in Barnsley, to ask him what effect installing heat meters had had on his schemes. He told me that following the installation of heat meters, heat consumption dropped by 50%. I was gobsmacked.

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local authorities must lead the way to low carbon

Posted in biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, london, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, tagged , 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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