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 climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged Jonathon Porritt, Wilmot Dixon on December 8, 2008| 5 Comments »
At the end of last week, I was happy to hear that Jonathon Porritt had joined the board at Wilmott Dixon. It’s particularly poignant timing, given the beating the industry has taken in recent months: Wilmott Dixon is underlining their commitment to achieving the carbon reductions that will be required in the built environment in the runup to 2016 and beyond.
Ok, you could argue that he’s only going to be a non-executive director, so his influence will be limited to board level. That might not sound like such a bad thing, but working with a couple of developers of similar size, I’ve been surprised to find genuine support for low carbon measures among the board only to run into a brick wall at operational level. One is no good without the other. But in WD’s case, let’s assume that vision is going to translate into action.
The point is, Wilmott Dixon have made this move at a time of low morale and deep skepticism in the construction industry. Many developers find themselves saddled with projects whose land values were agreed at the height of the property boom. In some cases, even where there’s a solid case for development, the banks refuse to offer credit. The zero carbon housing deadline in 2016 is looming and we haven’t even decided yet what “zero carbon” means or how it should be achieved. Who can blame developers who’ve sunk into a funk and dismiss those who talk about zero carbon as having their heads in the clouds?
Posted in climate change, energy, feed in tariff, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, tagged climate change bill, DECC, Energy Bill, planning bill on November 27, 2008| 1 Comment »
The mighty triumvirate has received royal assent: the climate change bill (excellent), the energy bill (excellent), and the planning bill (frightening) have now become acts. So now the UK is legally bound to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050 with interim targets along the way. Within a year we’ll see feed in tariffs for distributed energy up to 5MW. And ironically, the planning bill may be used to railroad through airport expansion and new coal fired power – but let’s ignore that for now.
Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged IEA report on November 17, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Over on the Sustainability Blog, Michael pointed out that, according to the IEA report, the cost of decarbonising the world’s energy supply would be less than has been spent recently in shoring up the world’s economies. For me a slightly more disturbing number is hidden deeper in the IEA report.
$3.6 trillion – the cost of decarbonising all the world’s energy production between 2010 and 2030.
$9.5 trillion – required investment into oil infrastructure in order to meet demands for oil between now and 2030.
So the cost of decarbonising is a fraction of the amount needed in order to shore up oil infrastructure to maintain business as usual. Sure, this is an oversimplification, but at the heart of it is a sad truth.
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 climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged Feed In Tariffs on October 28, 2008| 2 Comments »
A quick thought on feed in tariffs.
If a value is agreed for micro power generating renewables, what will the impact be on the solar thermal industry? Would this amount to an anti-competetive subsidy for one type of technology over another? And if so, what are the wider implications?
I can see a scenario in super low energy dwellings where the feed-in tariff for PV might result in an electric heating and DHW solution, but without solar thermal as it may have a poorer pay back. This could result in solutions biased towards oversized PV in situations where solar thermal provides a more common sense fit.
Any thoughts?
Posted in chp, climate change, energy, feed in tariff, micro chp, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines, tagged Ed Miliband, Energy Bill, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Lord Whitty on October 23, 2008| 2 Comments »
Away from the fanfare around Ed Miliband’s announcement that a feed in tariff (FiT) is on the way, the Lords have been debating an amendment to the Energy Bill that has the support of Conservatives, Lib Dems, and even some Labour peers.
What’s in the amendment? It says the Secretary of State has one year from the passing of the bill to bring in a feed in tariff. And the qualifying technologies, their maximum capacity, and their level of support are left to the Secretary of State to decide with no specified cap.
Despite wide support, it was clear that the Government wouldn’t officially get behind the bill as it wasn’t their idea. In fact, as recently as June the Government were firmly against a feed in tariff.
Baroness Wilcox, the amendment’s sponsor, has now withdrawn it, but only on the condition that the Government meet specific terms in their own amendment, which they’re expected put forward on 5 November. However, if the Government doesn’t fulfill her demands, she will reintroduce her original amendment. Here are her terms in a nutshell (my comments in italics):
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 Code for Sustainable Homes, sustainability, uncategorized, tagged BRE, BREEAM on September 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »
This is the second time that I have written this post, as I had not saved the first version and then browser magic lost it… I haven’t posted for a long time and wanted to avoid a negative post for my return, but unfortunately events have determined this otherwise.
Last week I undertook BREEAM for Offices training to plug some holes in my various accreditations, but was woefully underwhelmed by the quality of the BRE Training. (more…)
Posted in climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged payback period, WACC on September 23, 2008| 1 Comment »
Over on Zero Champion, Phil brought up the subject of payback periods, citing some examples from clients: 12 months, or 18 months, or 39 months.
Those periods equate to ridiculously high rates of return! 100%, 67%, and 31%! Are there so many fabulous investments out there that clients can justify hurdle rates like this?
Could it be that clients are being deliberately obstructive? Or maybe they just want to carry on doing things the way they’ve always done them? By demanding short payback periods they ensure they won’t be lured out of their narrow comfort zone. But this approach is completely unjustifiable.
Ignoring the inherent benefits and taking a purely financial view, a client ought to evaluate low carbon technology in the same way they would look at any other potential investment. Let’s assume our client is a developer with a weighted average cost of capital of 12.5%*. That means they should seriously consider investments that will achieve better than this rate of return. Being conservative, let’s bump it up to 15% – a very attractive investment. We’re still talking nearly 7 years before you’ve recouped your money.
There’s an issue of risk, but only with immature technology. CHP, solar thermal, PV, wind, hydro, biomass heating: these are all tried and tested and, given good site data, their performance can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy. Even with something trickier like biomass gasification, you can factor things like increased downtime into your figures and take a pessimistic view when predicting performance. But that doesn’t mean your hurdle rates suddenly leap into the stratosphere.
So it’s disappointing to hear that client’s are requiring payback periods like 12 months or even 39. They’re taking a distorted view of technology and, in the mean time, promoting the impression that low carbon is somehow so shoddy, so flawed, such a special case, that it should only used if it promises a financial miracle.
* For this example, assume of our developer’s capital, 40% is equity and 60% is debt. Assume cost of debt is 7.5% (LIBOR of 5.5% plus another 2%) and cost of equity is 20%. I’ve ignored tax.
| Why Ofgem must stick… on how many old homes will get he… | |
 | Marko Cosic on Testing, testing |
| Martin Winlow on the myth of stone walls as… | |
| Martin Winlow on the myth of stone walls as… | |
 | Martin Winlow on the myth of stone walls as… |
 | AlanDHill@hotmail.co… on the myth of stone walls as… |
| Comment: What would… on why we’ll share Open… |
carbon limited 