I just received a very interesting comment from a “simple builder” about the regulatory maze. There are some interesting points in there. I don’t agree with all of them but I wanted to draw attention to them just the same:
Sorry guys I just have to speak out.
I speak as a simple Builder, we are a practical breed, not scientists, but we are being treated with rafts of legislation written by lunatics…
Posted in architecture, climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, passivhaus, renewable energy, SAP, sustainability, utilities, zero carbon | 3 Comments »
Future Energy Yorkshire has put together some standardised biomass supply contracts, available from their website. This provides a great starting point and actually takes some real costs out of setting up a supply contract. Excellent work, FEY.
Posted in biomass, renewable energy | Tagged biomass supply contract, ESA, FEY, Future Energy Yorkshire | Leave a Comment »
As flagged up by Tom at XCO2e, the Warwick wind trial final report (pdf) is out and the results aren’t good. Keeping in mind that the trials included only sub-2kW turbines, there are some important things to take away from the report:
Posted in engineering, london, renewable energy, wind turbines | Tagged Encraft, micro-wind, Warwick Wind Trials | Leave a Comment »
A bunch of green bloggers got together last week after EcoBuild and as the pints slid down, the conversation got increasingly nerdtastic. It got so bad that drunken consultants were pulling out their laptops (never a good idea in the pub) and gesturing wildly at powerpoint slides as they slurred and babbled incoherently. Not naming names, but we know who we are.
Inevitably, the conversation turned to feed in tariffs in the UK. In December, the wind turbine company Proven Energy called for a 40p rate. The folks at quietrevolution have suggested 25p for the first 25MWh, then stepping down. Turning to PV, a survey for solarcentury found that 90% of people would “consider” solar with a FiT of 50p.
There’s no doubt that the FiT in Germany is responsible for the PV boom there, creating 250k jobs. Other countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece, France, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Bulgaria (Bulgaria?! We’ve been shown up by Bulgaria?) have followed suit.
So what would level of FiT would be required in the UK to match the support shown by a country like, say, Italy?
Posted in climate change, feed in tariff, sustainability, utilities | Tagged Proven Energy, PV, quietrevolution | Leave a Comment »
Unfortunately I have to do some flippin work this morning and so can’t attend the passivhaus seminars at ecobuild. If anybody attends, could you put up a comment or drop me an email?
Posted in passivhaus | Leave a Comment »
A few months ago, I was in a meeting with Mark Davis, the civil servant in charge of the Zero Carbon consultation. He said, ‘In all the conversations I’ve had about Zero Carbon no one has ever protested that you can have too much energy efficiency!’ The people around the table laughed and nodded but I put my hand up to disagree and tried to make the following case:
Posted in Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, zero carbon | 15 Comments »
I spent a fair chunk of the weekend going through the CESP and HES consultations and it’s sucked the life right out of me. I think I may have consultation blindness. The worst part is, there’s a chance this might be a game-changing shift we’re witnessing here but 200 pages later it’s almost impossible to care.
Luckily I also spent a chunk of the weekend making a kick ass leaf hut with my 3 year old son. That may be the only reason I’ve survived.
Posted in energy, engineering, renewable energy | Tagged CESP, HES, kick ass leaf hut | 3 Comments »
In the last post, I argued that we’ve got to strip the carbon out of almost all of our existing stock in order to hit the 2050 target. That’s a huge challenge. Phil Clark summed it up in a comment:
I would consider it a near impossibility to upgrade every old leaky house without some massively radical action.
I completely agree: it’s going to take radical action. But what kind? The picture gets a bit clearer if you take a look at where the carbon is coming from.
Looking at the graph from my previous post, we can take a snapshot of where the emissions will come from in 2050 under a business-as-usual scenario.
The pie chart above shows that of the emissions from houses in 2050, almost 2/3 will come from heat. Electricity, on the other hand, will only make up just over a third of emissions. Without radical action to decarbonise heat, we won’t get anywhere near the 2050 target.
Posted in biomass, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, zero carbon | 4 Comments »
Sounds crazy but it’s true.
Here’s a graph I put together showing the number of houses of various ages up to 2050. It clearly shows that, using current demolition rates, the vast majority of the homes in use in 2050 have already been built. Details on how I put the graph together can be found in a previous post.
Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, zero carbon | 9 Comments »
In a blog post earlier this month, Mark Brinkley wrote that the zero carbon agenda is dependent on private wire networks, which he contends are anti-competitive. While I have a lot of respect for Mark, in this case his arguments aren’t valid. Here’s why.
Posted in Code for Sustainable Homes, private wire, renewable energy, SAP, zero carbon | 8 Comments »
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