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?
Posted in chp, climate change, energy | Tagged Greenpeace, nuclear, Poyry | 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.
Posted in chp, climate change, energy, micro chp, private wire, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, wind turbines | Tagged BERR, Citiworks, license exemption, OFGEM | Leave a Comment »
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.
Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, engineering, renewable energy, SAP, sustainability | Tagged Code level 6, CSH, HRV, MVHR, passiv haus, Passive House, zero carbon house | 8 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.
Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines | Tagged fuel crisis, Gordon Brown, North Sea oil, nuclear, SDC | 2 Comments »
When it comes to carbon from energy and the built environment, misdirected government measures (however good the intention) are now likely to do more harm than good. Eye-catching initiatives, if and when they fail, provide justification to cynics and people whose interests lie in maintaining the status quo. And more importantly the measures waste time and damage the chances of introducing more effective alternatives in future.
We’re seeing this now with the zero carbon targets. As the UKGBC recently found, the targets as they stand will be impossible to meet for up to 80% of new homes. The current zero carbon definition is a great idea very badly expressed.
Posted in uncategorized | 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.
Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability | Tagged Guardian, IEA, Observer, peak oil | 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.
Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, utilities, wind turbines | Leave a Comment »
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. Continue Reading »
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 | 4 Comments »
Nick and I were kindly asked by Phil Clark to speak at this year’s Think08. We thought long and hard and decided that I’ll be representing Carbon Limited (and Fontenergy) at the event while Nick schmoozes in the background. So I’ll be the Face Man to his B.A. so to speak. Or the Magnum to his Robin Masters. The Buck to his Twiki. Or… whatever, you see where I’m going with this.
Phil’s put us in a great stream at the conference, speaking alongside Robert Kyriakides (fellow blogger and the man behind solar thermal company Genersys), Richard Shennan from Fulcrum (with his effortless cool, top ‘tache, and unbeatable Basque cooking), and Angus Norman from EDF (who I’ve never met but am looking forward to meeting).
I’ll be talking about the effect of the upcoming regs on the way we generate our energy (i.e. the extent to which regs will push us from a centralised generation model to a distributed one and what the implications are). I’ve been doing quite a lot of work in this area with one of the big developers, though I haven’t written much about it on the blog.
Come on down, watch the talk, and say hi.
Posted in uncategorized | 5 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.
Posted in climate change, energy, engineering, sustainability, uncategorized, utilities | 10 Comments »
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