Kits and Mortar

Chair: Max Fraser
Speakers: Dr Douglas Parr (Greenpeace), Gary Freedman (Ecotricity), Stuart Motford (The Planning Portal)

Douglas Parr, Greenpeace
Have to see the energy system through lens of climate change; defining issue at the moment. If some of the not terribly wild predictions come to pass, ExCeL will be under water.

What do we need to do? Three pronged strategy: use energy more efficiently; use renewable energy; use decentralised energy, electricity generated close to point of use because then don’t lose all the power you currently do in transmission. When you do burn fossil fuels, you can use the heat you waste when you normally produce electricity and use it for the heat we need on an everyday basis. Isn’t it crazy that you have a boiler at home, but when we generate electricity in a power station we chuck away all that heat into cooling towers? Heat we waste in cooling towers pretty much matches the heat we need for housing in the UK. If we generated energy closer to where we needed, we’d be able to use that heat.

EfficienCity, brings some idea of reality to what it would be like to live in such an energy efficient, decentralised, renewable word. All sorts of examples on the city, e.g. a Brewery, hospital, leisure centre, as well as housing.

Video about combined heat and power (CHP) plant at Scottish & Newcastle Royal Brewery in Manchester – full details on website so I won’t transcribe the video here, just click on East Zone, then Brewery. But in short, the burnable waste from the brewery is used as fuel for the CHP plant. The scheme will reduce their carbon footprint by 87%.

There are working examples around the UK. This model illustrates examples from around the world, e.g. housing in Malmo, Sweden. These examples do exist and they show that even your average city can produce quote a lot of low and zero carbon energy.

But, once this energy goes outside your own building, [i.e. when selling back to the grid] it gets very complicated and difficult. If we want a low-carbon society, we need to make it much easier. The detail of why it’s so difficult, the market is very unfriendly for small producers, such as individual householders, and our political system is not giving much encouragement to individuals and businesses to do their bit.

Nothing illustrated this more than last week: the government has repeatedly promised smart metres that show what you are using for free. It’s been shown that if householders know which appliances use what energy, they’ll bring the bills down through switching appliances off.

But the government did a u-turn on basis that some technology might come out in the next few years that might be better. Not a tactic, you’ll note, we apply to healthcare or the classroom. But because this might have cost the utilities a bit of money, nothing happened. Political system has some way to go. But there is an opportunity to contribute to the decentralised energy money. Integrate efficiency and renewables with locally generated energy.

Gary Freedman, Ecotricity
Ecotricity is an energy supplier and generator that’s had a green energy tariff, since 1995. They supply clean energy, homes and businesses.

Most important area to talk about re: climate change is energy generation – single biggest emitter. People assume it’s cars or planes, but aviation is only 5% of what we emit. The largest is energy, and so the most important and urgent area to do something about.

When you think about cars, and people talk about battery cars – but how does that battery get charged up? Need more renewables. Two things to do – use less and change the way we generate energy.

Five key areas available:

1. Sun (solar photovoltaics and heating)
This means for homes, photovoltaics that generate electricity and solar hot water. PV is still pretty expensive and quite a long-term pay back, but prices are coming down quite dramatically. Solar hot water is quite economic payback in carbon debt terms and economically. But there’s also solar tower power, which is in the deserts of California and Spain, they get thousands of reflective mirrors which reflects the sun onto a water tank which heats up and boils, which drives an generator. Don’t require any cells, it’s all just mirrors.

2. Hydro (water)
People assume we should do more projects with hydro, but we don’t have any more large areas we can adopt this tech for in the UK. There are a number of smaller projects. It’s reliable, but difficult.

Wave – prototype but a lot of potential for the UK. Lots of wave energy we potentially have, but there are tough marine conditions.

Tidal – talk of barraging the Severn Estuary, could create 10% of UK’s energy, but environmental detriments are significant. So have environmentalists battling with each other, as there are negative impacts to wildlife.

3. Biomass
Means ‘burning stuff’. To make it work you need a source of stuff to burn, and if you’re in London we’re not really surrounded by suitable materials, so a bit limited, but in some ares of the UK and in the north of England and Scotland, it could become more and more relevant and realistic.

4. Ground source heat.
Mentioned Scandinavia, just by drilling a few feet you get to a very stable heat. done very efficiently in Sweden, not really done here in new dwellings. Some people are fighting the building industry about this because if we think about this as buildings are designed it’s more efficient, but can’t really retrofit.

5. Wind power
Very important to distinguish between large-scale wind – the big wind farms – and the small scale turbines that sit on your roof. Large-scale is proven, economic, very efficient, and the only large scale renewable tech that’s truly economic right now.

A few myths about wind:
- do wind turbines kill birds? Only if you put them in migratory paths, and that’s not allowed in the UK. Consult with English Nature, etc. and have no bird deaths in UK now
- noise – is actually very quite now
- intermittency – can have 20% of UK power from intermittent sources, and currently only 3%
- they are efficient
- TV reception – people think that it’s affected but it’s not.
- Carbon debt – people assume that because there’s concrete and metal that it’s not worth it environmentally. But carbon debt repaid in 3 – 6 months and will live for 30 years and at the end of that all that metal can be recycled.

What can businesses do? If a business wants to have renewable energy on their site but doesn’t know where to go, Ecotricity does all the up-front money, installs and maintains, and the company gets the electricity direct.

Ford – London’s first wind park, 2 in Dagenham. Were told that you can’t put wind turbines in a city, and so successful are putting a third up. These 2 turbines provide all electricity for the Dagenham plant.

M4, there’s a very visible turbine at the Prudential, near Reading.

What can individuals do? Probably more difficult, there’s no doubt that energy efficiency is important: using less power, smart meters, showing how much energy you’re using. But starting with something like solar hot-water is a good thing.

Stuart Mockford, CLG Planning Portal
Everything you’ve seen her so far needs planning permission. Planning Portal has something like 150 pages of information on it.

Before you do anything, you need to check what planning permissions etc. you need.

Three areas on the site: public, planing professionals, government users. In public area, is a section on greener homes. Then shows you information on where you can find information for what you need to do to submit a planning application.

One of the areas is micro-generation, i.e. home energy generation. Solar, thermal, small wind turbines, heat pumps, hydro. Site also includes case studies, about what people have experienced when putting these technologies in place. Lots of documents and info you can download.

Interactive House area which give information on what planning applications you need for each type of tech. Solar panels, for example, may not need planning permission but it does vary depending on type of panels and whether your house is listed, etc.

There’s also information on other measures you can take such as loft insulation, including insulation grants.

Site goes into quite a lot of details about what can be done, who’s done it before, and what planning people are likely to say. Good place to go before you spend any money, to make sure you don’t waste any.

Questions
Max: Doug, EfficienCity is an ideal scenario, lots of things that need to be done. Anything you’d prioritise?

Douglas: In some cases, CHP can actually be cheaper than conventional power generation, but it’s risky because there’s an up-front payment, but once it’s up and running it’s cheaper. In Southampton, for example, the central shopping centre is run on decentralised power and their bills are 10% cheaper. But current market models are unfriendly and expensive to set up. So first priority would be that for an urban centre. Under right framework it could be cheaper and easier still.

Max: Any uptake from the government.
Douglas: The government has recognised that local energy is good for the whole system. Even just electricity, on average we waste about 8% of our electricity in the wires connecting power stations to homes. In peak time, it’s about 20%. We have a lot of kit around Britain waiting to support peak power draw, and it’s not used the rest of the time. If energy is local, and don’t have to meet peak load on a national scale, because it’s all done locally, there are enormous savings. We’ve modelled that, by decentralising, we can lower carbon emissions, cheaper, and more secure because we save on fuel. This can save the country money, but from the point of the person putting this in, we don’t see that saving.

Max: Nuclear?
Douglas: We’re very antinuclear.

Gary: We’re with Greenpeace. A fraction of the money they are proposing to put into a nuclear power plant, we could easily put that into renewables and the output would overtake the amount we get from nuclear.

Max: Why don’t they get it?
Gary: The nuclear lobby is very powerful. Government said that they want renewables, but they planners don’t allow it, so the government can say they tried it and it didn’t work.

Max: Attitude of planners?
Stuart: Planners more interested in reducing power usage, also in favour of local generation, but there’s no silver bullet. One augments the other. Help people reduce use and save money, e.g. by providing grants for insulation. And also by reducing spinning reserve, where generators are just spinning, waiting for this demand to come. A of of kit just waiting to meet this demand, and trying to spread that demand and load that we want to think about. If you’re generating some electricity yourself, you’re demand on this spinning load is less, because you need less. So saving power, cutting emissions, and saving money.

Max: Wind turbines, beauty or eyesore?
Gary: We’re beyond that argument because wind is proven, the environmental and economic benefits are proven. Something like 70% of people in most surveys are in favour, the nimby attitude is overdone, we get a lot of positive reaction. Surveys after wind turbines installed increases to 90% in favour. It’s more perception of change. I don’t like look of pylons, but we accept them as something we must have.

Max: What sort of costs are we talking about in terms of implementing renewables, such as solar panels, or wind turbines or ground source?
Gary: Solar hot water is a couple of grand, solar PV, lots more expensive, for a 1kw system, which will produce 1/3 or 1/4 of your needs, costs £10,000, and can get 50% grants.

Max: How do you get grants?
Energy Savings Trust, through the government.

Douglas: In Germany it’s much cheaper, they have much more positive policy framework which is driving costs down.

Max: Wind turbines on a large scale are effective. What about smaller ones? Are they effective?
Stuart: If you have a wind turbine on it’s own, the payback time from savings can take a long time on its won. Some people talk about 18 months – 2 years. Carbon footprint of manufacture also important. But if you tie it in with solar hot water or PV solar, then those combined can provide significant savings.

Douglas: Were considering wind turbines, but need an assessment of wind resources. some urban locations really aren’t suitable. Some are, will get reasonable generation, but make sure you know what you’re dealing with in your place.

Stuart: Yes, on Bodmin Moor, you might get a payback in 6 months, but in Middlesex might be two years.

Max: Microgeneration within the home, you’re producing electricity and power of your own, and you can sell it back to the grid.
Gary: Yes, there are two things you can get – one is the price for the energy, also price for a Renewable Obligation Certificate, so for 1000 kw hrs, you get about £40. Energy costs are increasing so payback is improving. Energy’s gone up about 30% in the last year, so becoming more economic.

Questions from floor.
Q: How much difference would the feed-in tariff system make?
Gary: David Cameron thinks it will, we think it’s a bit late. The ROC system works well for developers, but it’s the planning system that’s difficult. Has been very successful in Germany. Large scale, don’t need it, let’s focus on planing; for micro-renewables, people need help, it’s unaffordable, and don’t see why it’s so hard to get the grant, and it costs us more than in Germany.

Max: Is rather embarrassing that our government is not offering enough incentive. In France, renewables are tax free.

Q: Went to Sweden and was fascinated to see they had 3 wind turbines in each village. Everyone was supportive of those three turbines here, wish we could introduce that in this country. Where do you get a comparison between cost/energy provided by various items that are available, e.g. PV vs. solar panels, wind etc.
Douglas: One place to go would be the Micropower Council, whether they do that in a convenient form, not sure but most likely to know. Or Renewable Energy Association, but are really an industry association for medium scale producers.

Max: Or Renewable Energy Centre. Centre for Alternative Technologies, or Energy Savings Trust. But every manufacturer for wind has a power curve and would take that with a pinch of salt, because it doesn’t include turbulence, wind sheer, etc.. With solar, have to think about maintenance, cleaning, whether your roof faces the right direction. Individual circumstances will affect how well your house does.

Stuart: Huge number of factors that affect efficiency, but taking all of that into account, should be able to publish information on which is the best for different envinronments, but that’s very subjective. It needs an independent party with means of measuring, someone like Which? or equivalent of that.

Max: The Swedish have always embraced these things, it’s a cultural thing. In the UK we have a strange attitude to change, we think the government’s not doing enough but when change does happen, lots of people grumble. Needs a change in mindset, and we should lobby government like crazy. We’ve got a new Mayor of London, who doesn’t have the best rack record regarding carbon and the environment, so let’s give him a kick up the backside!