THE MAGAZINE OF THE HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL
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HHIC C
HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL
MARCH 2012 ISSUE17
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>> WELCOME
WELCOME
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FROM YOUR EDITOR
lease ave a gh res hanks.
As energy prices continue to fluctuate, fuel poverty headlines are never out of the news and more people are looking for different ways to heat their homes. In this issue, we explore the subject of community energy from delving into projects in Finland and Germany to how domestic homes could be installing microCHP technology in the near future. Prashant Vaze, Chief Economist at Consumer Focus discusses how Germany will manage without nuclear. Mari Martiskainen from the University of Sussex tells us about the community pioneers in Finland and Greg Barker MP, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change reveals what the government is doing policy wise in regards to community energy schemes. Dr Dan van de Horst from the University of Birmingham debates how
important it is to learn from the sustainable energy islands and how they harness natural resources for energy.
HHIC Camden House, Warwick Road, Kenilworth Warwickshire CV8 1TH Tel: 01926 513777 Fax: 01926 511923 e-mail:info@hhic.org.uk Website: www.centralheating.co.uk
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Jodie Wiltshire, EDITOR, editor@hhic.org.uk, Twitter: JodieCommsHHIC
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Membership Services Manager Isaac Occhipinti Tel. 01926 513742 e-mail: isaac@hhic.org.uk Communications Manager Jodie Wiltshire Tel. 01926 513743 e-mail: editor@hhic.org.uk
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CONTENTS <<
CONTENTS MARCH 2012 ISSUE 17 FEATURES
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FROM SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ISLANDS TO LOCAL EXPERIMENTAL ZONES - Dr Dan van der Horst explains
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POWER FROM THE PEOPLE -
why the sustainable energy islands are local experimental zones
Prashant Vaze from Consumer Focus debates how Germany will manage without nuclear
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TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF -
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CLIMATE WEEK -
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SAVINGS THROUGH RENEWABLES – COMMUNITY ENERGY PIONEERS IN FINLAND - Mari Martiskainen from the University of
Greg Barker MP tells us about his government’s policies on community energy
A review of the national campaign
Sussex describes successful renewable community projects in Finland
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TAKING THE DISTRICT LINE - Simon Osborne, Specification Channel Manager for Baxi reveals why more people should support microCHP technology
USING SOLAR TECHNOLOGY IN COMMUNITY ENERGY PROJECTS - Chris Laughton, FIDHEE explains why solar has an considerable appeal to community energy projects zones
REGULARS
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MEMBER NEWS
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MARKET UPDATE
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WORKING LIVES - Former MP, Mike Foster tells us about his new role as Chief Executive of SBGI
CONTRIBUTORS Gregory Barker MP, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change Gregory Barker was appointed Shadow Minister for Climate Change & Environment in December, 2005 and led the passage of the Climate Change Bill through the House of Commons in 2008 and was a key author of the Conservative Party’s ‘Low Carbon Economy’ green paper, launched in January 2009. In October 2008 he was promoted to Shadow Climate Change minister in the new Shadow Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Prashant Vaze Prashant Vaze is the Chief Economist at Consumer Focus, which campaigns for a fair deal for consumers. He has worked as an economist and analyst on energy and environment issues for several years in Defra, PM’s Strategy Unit and as an independent consultant. Prashant has authored a book, ‘The Economical Environmentalist’ on practical challenges and cost effective solutions for people trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. It investigates the prospects and cost-effectiveness of many different low carbon technologies. Prashant is on the Research Council’s UK Steering Committee for the 2010 Review of Energy and also the Energy Saving Trust’s board for piloting the Pay as You Save finance mechanism for energy efficiency and microgeneration.
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Dr Dan van de Horst Before joining the University of Birmingham as a lecturer, Dan has worked as an environmental consultant, as an advisor on integrated watershed management for a water utility, as a post-doc on carbon management and as a senior research advisor for a Department for Environment, Food and Agriculture (Defra) agency where he also headed the GIS analysis team. His research area is sustainable natural resource management and his work to date has mainly focused on sustainable land use and ecosystem services and on the social and policy aspects of energy transitions – especially the introduction of renewable energy systems.
Mari Martiskainen Mari joined the Sussex Energy Group in SPRU, University of Sussex, in July 2006. Her research has centered on consumer behaviour and energy demand, with links to concepts such as community energy and stakeholder engagement via local initiatives. She is also interested in the debates surrounding new and old energy technologies such as nuclear power and microgeneration. In October 2010, Mari started an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funded PhD study in the Innovation of Community Energy Projects in Finland and the United Kingdom. Mari has a BA in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki and an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London. Mari has previously worked for RenewableUK and bunkerworld.com.
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>> SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ISLANDS
FROM SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ISLANDS W
hen it comes to issues of energy, the UK is a country of contrasts. It is the windiest country in the EU, yet until recently it had very little renewable energy and most of it was from waste biomass. It is a country with some of Western Europe’s highest rates of home ownership and also the highest rates of fuel poverty. We invented trams and district heating systems, yet we abandoned these for less energy efficient and more individualised energy technologies. When it comes to seeking lessons and inspiration for the transition to a low carbon society, we can find many good practice examples in other northern European countries. But we can also find good examples closer to home.
Imagine a place where you can build your own house on whichever agricultural plot of land you manage to buy, or where you can drive your car without the need for MoT. That may not sound very sustainable to you, but these are also the sort of places where people would install their own ground source heat pumps, and have wind turbines inbetween the houses. These houses may be on the national electricity grid but not on the gas grid. They may have storage heaters that are not powered at night by the
baseload provided by nuclear power plants, but by a DC wire from that wind turbine in the back yard. And what happens if the wind doesn’t blow? Well, this is a place where the wind is about as intermittent as a coal fired plant, which has to be switched off every once in a while for maintenance.
Image: Robert Shuttleworth
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SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ISLANDS <<
Some readers will have recognised the above as a reference to some Scottish islands. What sets these islands aside is a particular combination of resource availability (very windy), limited or expensive supplies of grid energy (electricity and gas), and a cold climate. However to these local economic criteria, we can also add a legal-political dimension, such as the local waiver of certain legal constraints on energy technologies (no MoT required on islands without a MoT-approved garage) and the availability of special financial support measures for fragile rural areas. Last but not least, these places are inhabited by people with a strong ethos of self-reliance. When you live in a place where certified technicians are
hard to come by and where winter storms may keep the ferry grounded for days, you learn soon enough that the materialities of life cannot be provided by the weight of your wallet alone; they are better guaranteed if you also learn how to fix things yourself, and/or learn to work with neighbours who have the tools or technical skills you lack. Some of these people have extended the ethos of self-help from the spanner to the pen and have become particularly adept in writing project proposals. And who could blame civil servants or politicians if they are captivated by the iconic nature of these places? If you could assist a green energy project or come to cut its ribbon, where better to do so than in a small and
seemingly idyllic rural community, where the social and economic benefits of the green energy project can be so easily highlighted. But to what extent do these wonderful examples of ‘sustainable energy islands’ contribute to our quest for a transition to a low carbon society, in a country where 90% of the population live in urban areas? We can’t make our cities and suburban areas more sunny or windy so as to make renewables more effective. And we have a limited bag of money to sponsor renewable energy projects. The PV Feed-in-tariff craze of 2011 was great for investors, but for people who do not own their own home, who don’t have a south-facing roof top, or who do not live in the sunnier (and wealthier) south of the UK, there was little justice in this scheme, which they co-finance through their energy bills. A similar domestic PV scheme in Belgium has resulted in a public backlash and people who covered their
TO LOCAL EXPERIMENTAL ZONES By Dr Dan van der Horst
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>> SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ISLANDS When you live in a place where certified technicians are hard to come by and where winter storms may keep the ferry grounded for days, you learn soon enough that the materialities of life cannot be provided by the weight of your wallet alone; they are better guaranteed if you also learn how to fix things yourself, and/or learn to work with neighbours who have the tools or technical skills you lack. Image: Robert Shuttleworth
“We should have low carbon experimental zones not just off the coast of Scotland but in every part of the country.” Image: Robert Shuttleworth
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SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ISLANDS << Image: Robert Shuttleworth
roofs in PV are now being identified as greedy. In the Czech Republic a similar craze resulted in solar farms in some of the least sunny parts of the country, with prime agricultural land being reclassified to remove a barrier in the planning process. Also in the UK, we have had solar farms springing up in 2011, virtually without any planning problems. Many wind farm proposals are defeated in the planning process, especially in communities with active citizens who have the skills, time and motivation to fight these local developments. The Treasury might have wished that obtaining planning permission would have been equally problematic for solar farms. I was impressed by one particular legal innovation which arose in the PV craze; rent-a-roof schemes have the potential to unlock many of the most suitable locations, owned by people who don’t have the time, money or expertise to develop such an investment themselves. I heard several stories of churches seeking to install PV on their roofs, with the planning application being frustrated by aesthetic concerns of the local planning officer. This local interpretation of the planning brief is also innovative (I don’t think that ‘expert’ aesthetic assessment of new technologies is [or should be] a cornerstone in the planning curriculum), but it highlights the space of officialdom to frustrate low carbon developments rather than to facilitate them.
The transition to a low carbon economy is an ethical and political choice, influenced and constrained by shifting economic realities – but not driven by them. Neither is it driven by technology; studies show that we can achieve it with existing technologies. Probably the largest challenge, and the big elephant in the room, is behavioural change. History teaches us that improved energy efficiency alone, will not help; when the unit price drops, then collectively we tend to use more of it. And the newspaper headlines show us that we have both energy poverty and energy gluttony in this unfair world, the latter manifesting itself through obesity, light pollution, information overload, car-dependency, jam-packed roads etc. Many of these issues can be addressed through planning and management – but it would require a shift in institutional dynamics to achieve this. Unlike the Dutch with their long-term planning of flood defences, the Danes with their long-term planning for the demise of their share of North Sea oil, or the French with their Grands Projets and TGV trains, the British seem to be less enamoured by the idea of planning at a grand scale. This makes the legally binding target of 80% carbon emissions reductions by 2050 (though far-off) all the more radical. The only historic equivalent is probably is the creation of the Forestry Commission in 1919. That was all about having a strategic wood reserve to prop up the
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>> SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ISLANDS
Image: Use of renewable electricity in rural Lancashire.
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shafts in the coal mines in the case of another war with a u-boat producing nation. In short, it was a long-term plan to invest in our energy security. The 2050 law will clearly also require longterm planning to achieve. But who will do this planning in a time of peace and fiscal austerity? I am not an expert in active grid management at the national scale, but some experiments in distributed generation in the ‘Scottish lab’ can give us useful pointers; Eigg’s 100% renewable local electricity grid is based on a social contract to control and limit electricity use, with agreed penalty payments if you use more than your fair share and your switch trips out. This is equity based demand-side management in the face of a constrained supply of
hydro, solar and wind energy. On the Shetlands, we can find the UK’s only district heating plant which has retrofitted heating pipes into many private homes – on a voluntary basis. It is a Scandinavian approach, adapted to the UK with the financial backing of the Shetland Charitable Trust (community benefits paid by the oil industry). The not-for-profit company which runs the district heating scheme by incinerating waste from the Shetlands and the Orkneys (what British town would accept a nearby incinerator,
burning the waste of another town a hundred miles away?), have raised the price of the heating they provide ‘out of fairness’ since every Shetlander who is not on the district heating system, is having to pay so much more for their heating. They have smart meters in every customer’s home but whilst I’ve heard complaints about the price going up and the breaking up of the streets to put in the pipes, nobody mentioned that big brother was monitoring their energy use; people are not naïve but they know the plant manager and they retain enough trust in local
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SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ISLANDS << institutions. A close look at the Shetland district heating system reveals how many potential barriers there are for such a low-carbon retrofit. Hot water pipes connect waste management with energy provision, running across public streets and feeding a large variety of domestic, industrial and third sector customers. They have taken over the management and control of existing back-up boilers in schools and hospitals, thus having to invest less in back-up plants themselves. Sure, these developments require technical skills
and ample financial resources, but they also require a legal and political space (a legal-political ‘island’ where certain restrictions may be waived and certain options are explicitly encouraged) to grow solutions which make local sense – technical, economic and social sense. Our national and local institutions need to encourage such experimentation. Our culture of governance needs to shift. Is it unfair to expect that people will tolerate being the local guinea pigs to an experiment for the sake of low
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carbon transition? I think it’s only unfair if local people have no say in the design of the experiment and ownership of the findings. Also, if the rest of the country retains a conservative attitude to change rather than readying themselves to learn from that experiment, mainstream it or conduct further experiments themselves. We should have low carbon experimental zones not just off the coast of Scotland, but in every part of the country.
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>> POWER TO THE PEOPLE
POWER FROM THE PEOPLE –
HOW GERMANY WILL MANAGE WITHOUT NUCLEAR By Prashant Vaze, Chief Economist and Head of Fair Markets at Consumer Focus
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POWER TO THE PEOPLE <<
Prashant Vaze is the Chief Economist at Consumer Focus, which campaigns for a fair deal for consumers. Within Consumer Focus he leads work on the impact of increased charges being faced by energy customers in meeting the low carbon challenge. He has worked as an economist and analyst on energy and environment issues for several years in Defra, PM’s Strategy Unit and as an independent consultant. He fronted work at the Office of Climate Change on decarbonising heat and on reducing household’s greenhouse gas emissions. The former was published by DECC as the Heat Call for Evidence which recommended the development of the renewable heat incentive. Prashant has authored a book,‘The Economical Environmentalist’ on practical challenges and cost effective solutions for people trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. It investigates the prospects and cost-effectiveness of many different low carbon technologies. Prashant is on the Research Council’s UK Steering Committee for the 2010 Review of Energy and also the Energy Saving Trust’s board for piloting the Pay as You Save finance mechanism for energy efficiency and micro-generation.
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>> POWER TO THE PEOPLE
“
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T
he sentiment in Germany [towards nuclear power] has completely changed overnight,” declared Gerard Reid the influential energy analyst days after the explosion at Fukashima power station. Three months later Merkel stunned the world with her decision to close down all Germany’s nuclear power stations by 2022. Germany had already showed its disinterest towards carbon capture and storage and this indicated that its ambitions to produce secure low-carbon electricity could possibly lay in tatters. German energy policy matters to the rest of the Europe. It invented the fixed price feed-in-tariff (the United States was the first to invent the feed-in tariff itself); its huge purchases of solar PV have driven down the world price of modules to everyone’s benefit. More worryingly Germany uses around a sixth of Europe’s electricity and its nuclear abstinence has huge implications for the region’s energy security. Whether or not Germany will press the off switch on nuclear power by 2023 is unclear. But there is no doubting its commitment to renewable electricity. This stood at 17 per cent in 2010. This percentage doubled between 1998 and 2003 and doubled again between 2003 and 2008. Financial incentives like the feedin tariffs are not enough to bring this growth about. The country has harnessed its people’s desire for sustainable, secure energy to form the compromises needed to build the infrastructure. People in Germany have much in common with British people. They are no more concerned about climate change than we are in the UK. They too love their traditional landscapes like the Black Forest. Conflicts over land used for renewable energy are found in Germany just as they are in the UK. But in Germany, communities have been more successful in securing the necessary political agreements. Bundesländer, Germany’s equivalent of regions, are setting goals for how
much renewables should be deployed and where they should be located. And there is a strong movement for cooperatively and municipally owned energy companies. These ensure local energy resources and financial subsidies paid for by customers (feedin tariffs) or tax-payers (cheap loans provided by the KfW bank) benefit the local people not companies. Profits and employment are kept in the region. In southwest Germany the municipal utilities were merged to form Badenova AG & Co KG a decade ago. It provides water, heat and electricity to the local communities. Dieter Salomon, the Green Party mayor of Freiburg, chairs the utility. Its close links with the city allow it to conceive and deliver pioneering and system-wide solutions to meet the area’s energy needs. When tighter environmental regulations meant that Freiburg’s landfill site at Eichelbuck had to be closed this created the impetus for some system level thinking. For the past twenty years the landfill-methane produced from the decomposing waste has been piped several kilometres and used in a combined heat and power plant. This has provided heat for 1200 homes through a district heating system. Now the site is closed, smaller and smaller amounts of landfill-methane will be produced. The city’s solution was to create an alternative source of renewable methane. It has built an anaerobic digestor, which treats the food waste and garden clippings of almost half a million people and funnelled the gas into the landfill sites pipe network. This large air-tight vat cooks the waste for 25 days making compost, liquid fertiliser and biogas. The plant cost around €25 million in today’s money. The facility was located in an industrial estate, attracted little opposition from environmentalists or local residents and took just one year to obtain planning permission and three years to build. It now generates enough electricity to power 3000 homes, 6000 tonnes of compost, liquid fertiliser for farmers,
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POWER TO THE PEOPLE <<
“People in Germany have much in common with British people. They are no more concerned about climate change than we are in the UK. They too love their traditional landscapes like the Black Forest. Conflicts over land used for renewable energy are found in Germany just as they are in the UK. But in Germany, communities have been more successful in securing the necessary political agreements.”
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>> POWER TO THE PEOPLE
deals with the city’s food waste issue as well as the heat described earlier. Altogether the system is 87% efficient at converting the biogas into useful heat and power, around twice as much as the typical gas fired station in the UK. An interesting quirk is that the now defunct landfill site has been redeveloped as a solar park. The site – not a hole but a fifty metre hillock – is covered with solar PV panels so it will soon generate power for 1000 homes. Contrast this with the wistfully named SELCHP (an acronym for SouthEast London Combined Heat and Power) facility in southeast London. It was built in 1994 and takes the waste from Lewisham and neighbouring London boroughs and uses it to provide
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power for 50,000 homes. The power station only utilises around a third of the energy in the waste, the intention was to use the waste heat to warm 7500 homes and local schools. An existing district heating network is located just four miles away. All it would take is a few miles of pipework and some political will and 28,000 tonnes of CO2 could be saved every year. Thames Water has replaced around 1300 miles of water pipes in the same period of time. But the political will and local
consensus has never existed. Germany has stable feed-in tariffs, which favour investment in sustainable energy. But the real difference between the UK and Germany is that cooperatively and municipally owned organisations guided by non-profit principles are playing a major part in developing the big picture solutions. Nuclear power is dead in Germany – and this has created the intellectual space for genuinely sustainable alternatives.
Co-Author Repowering Communities, Earthscan. Vaze participated in a recent delegation to Germany arranged by the Co-Operative Group Ltd.
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TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF <<
By Gregory Barker MP, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change
From Cheshire to Cornwall, Caerphilly to Carlisle, hundreds of communities are gearing up to explore all the beneďŹ ts that clean, green local energy has to offer, all thanks to a new coalition community-focused scheme. This coalition is committed to being the greenest government ever and this is another step towards achieving our goal.
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>> TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF
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37 winning communities have been awarded a share of £10million under the new Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF) launched at the end of last year. This scheme will see money flowing from central government to a range of different local groups, including parish councils, faith groups, community trusts and local authorities. The cash will be used to help communities get to grips with energy efficiency opportunities, as well as understand the possibilities for local renewable energy generation on the ground. Groups may carry out a communitywide study to see what they can do in their local area, work to broaden local awareness and understanding, look into setting up a community renewable energy cooperative or, perhaps, choose to explore the possibility of harnessing hydropower.
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For example, the Lindisfarne Community Development Trust, based on Holy Island just off the Northumberland coast will help island businesses, schools and landowners understand their energy use and implement energy-saving measures as well as develop a renewable heat project on the island. The benefits of producing energy at a local level are clear. Not only can green energy help cut carbon and help us meet our renewables targets, it can also help cut our dependence on expensive, imported fossil fuels and improve our security of supply. Local generation also has an important part in play in cutting household bills, in an era of rising energy costs. I strongly believe local energy generation is a key part of our energy future and local communities, with their drive and innovation must be
at the very heart of this revolution. Energy generation brings communities together, fostering relationships and helps develop valuable and attractive new technical skills. There is clearly an appetite for engagement on the ground - you just have to look at the high number of LEAF applications (over 500!) to get a feel for the enthusiasm out there. So what do we actually mean by ‘community energy’? When we talk about ‘community energy’ we are talking about quite a wide spectrum of action. Projects could involve energy schemes ranging from individual domestic installations to communitywide networks aimed at meeting the energy needs of a local community. It could also involve setting up bulkpurchasing agreements with suppliers so everyone can share the discount, or starting up energy projects in local
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TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF <<
areas in community buildings like schools and village halls. We know that local ‘champions’ and local leaders are crucial for spurring communities into action; they are indeed best placed to know what will work in their own area. And many have already taken it upon themselves see what can be done. However, government, too, has an important role to play in laying a pathway for communities to follow. We can help with advice and providing access to the right information. We have set up a community energy contact group, bringing experts together and putting community energy firmly on the table. And DECC’s ‘Community Energy Online’ website also offers further advice to anyone wanting to get involved. There are rewards out there for those householders and communities who do take it upon themselves to step up
to the challenge. We have developed a range of different schemes specifically designed to encourage generation of green heat and electricity at a local scale, through financial incentives. For example, there is money up for grabs for green heating under our Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI); a world first. This scheme, currently up and running for industrial and commercial customers as well as communities, pays groups for the heat generated by heat pumps, biomass boilers and anaerobic digesters. For example, a heat pump installed at a rugby or golf club could be owned by its members, as investors. Or a community hall could use a piece of spare land to install a biomass boiler, generating heat for the building and possibly sell excess heat to neighbouring homes or shops. The Renewable Heat Premium
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Payment grant scheme (RHPP) launched in July last year has enabled many social housing groups to install green heaters in their tenants’ homes. Households have also benefited from money off biomass boilers, heat pumps and solar thermal equipment. The Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) scheme offers cash for green electricity produced by solar pv panels, small scale wind turbines, anaerobic digesters and hydro installations for schemes up to 5MW in size. We want to ensure community scale projects are able to properly benefit from FITs and that’s why we are currently consulting on how best to do this. For local authorities there is advice on how to set up Energy Services Companies (ESCOs) to selling energy. Local authorities can also benefit from business rates from local renewable energy. There’s also help out there for the public sector to save energy by
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>> TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF
becoming more energy efficient. In December last year we announced an additional £20million in loans for energy efficiency in schools, universities, hospitals, local authorities and other public sector buildings. Our national heat map will be published in the spring and will clearly show the density of heat demand of different buildings, helping planners to better target community
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renewable heating schemes. We are clearly on the threshold of an exciting new era in the way energy is perceived, generated and used and the coalition is fully committed to spurring on the revolution. I want to see genuine ‘power to the people’. And communities as well as householders have an important role to play in making this happen. Communities up and down the
country are developing projects thanks to the LEAF scheme. But there are, of course, others who should be congratulated for already being ahead of the game. I look forward to seeing the fruits of their labour and would encourage other communities to step up to the challenge and reap all the benefits that green clean energy generation has to offer.
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MEMBER NEWS <<
I
HHIC met with over 15 MPs from December n February 2012, DECC released a homes in the UK, 1.5 million boilers are installed consultation on the second phase on the every year meaning that there are immediate and 2011 to February 2012 all of which were generally supportive of the technology and Feed-in Tariff review. It proposed raising significant opportunities for MicroCHP take up for genuinely interested in the potential. Many the current tariff for microCHP units to 12.5p both on and off natural gas grid households. were surprised that the technology was not from 10.5p and was the only technology to more popular or known about. see a rise in tariff levels. This was not the case Key benefits: Alan Whitehead MP was particularly for other technologies which saw a drop, and • We believe that with appropriate policy supportive and indeed asked two questions in some cases a dramatic drop. For microCHP framework a significant number of directly to Greg Barker MP, Minister of State this was a real vote in confidence from the UK microCHP units could be installed by 2020. for Energy and Climate Change. One question government in its potential to be part of the • MicroCHP units will typically operate at was asked the afternoon after an HHIC visit long-term strategy for domestic heat. times of peak demand on the national The hon. Gentleman is right. Back in 2002 there was lots of talk about the potential roll-out. The first phase of the feed-in tariff scheme for microto his parliamentary offices and one in early For HHIC this was a positive step in the right grid and will therefore help both reduce CHP has been beyond disappointing. The number of boilers is almost non-existent: a fraction. We set the 30,000 limit, worried that there would be February. The questions were met on both direction and the culmination of months of the pressure on the grid at peak times and a surge of deployment, but there has been 1% of that.” occasions with firm support from the Minister behind the scenes discussions to raise the the need for less efficient power stations. on the potential of microCHP. profile of challenge microCHP andmicroCHP why it industry, was important MicroCHP to produce This poses a direct to the now is the ittime to become seriousempowers about makingconsumers domestic installations a reality rather than anremained aspiration. Therefore work will need groups and and manufacturers to agree a roadmap of how we get toHHIC one will still be campaigning to ensure that in the Feed-in Tariff.to be done across all the interestelectricity heat domestically and trials million microCHP boilers by 2020. the consultation becomes reality, and we are In November 2011, HHIC representatives suggest savings of up to 60% reduction on hoping to convince DECC that an increase to 15p decided to send letters to MPs with an interest electricity bills for consumers. This may require support and incentives, but without a unified and clear vision the industry may fall short. This could have negative consequences in the short term would be much more sensible. in energy and the environment. The wish to back a product that could not act on its own promises. with regards to futureefficiency support from government who may no longer However, there is still a lot of work to be letter was an invite for us to spend some time What we wanted MPs So the next yearsdiscussing are going to be vital in the and evolution CHP products in the UK. With 90% of all heating products in In one of Greg Barker’s responses to Alan done. withfew them microCHP howofitdomestic and tomicro support was: 2020 still predicted to be gas boilers the market potential is out there, we now need to work on realising it. Whitehead he said the following: could play an important part in reducing CO2 • In order for the mass market potential “I share the hon. Gentleman’s ambition for emissions from domestic heat, one of the of microCHP to be fully used, continued the mass deployment of CHP. If we can get that largest contributors to the overall total. government support though the Feed-in Tariff technology to gain customer acceptance and is needed in this early deployment stage. if the industry can come forward, his ambition • HHIC is calling for a generation tariff of 15 Our argument focused around of one million boilers by 2020 is something pence per kWh to create the necessary the following issues: that we should think about. The industry needs incentive to put the industry on a steady MicroCHP is essentially a central heating to hear that message. I should like to test that path of growth. boiler which can also provide some of a ambition to find out whether it is credible and • The FIT must be market making, not household’s electricity and feed surplus feasible. I do not want to posit another number dependency creating.This means a FIT electricity back into the grid. It is a new and see the same level of progress as in the that provides a clear and effective financial technology, currently manufactured in low previous decade. incentive for householders, offering simple volumes, and yet to reach its commercial “The hon. Gentleman is right. Back in 2002 payback calculations and return on investment. maturity and therefore needs government there was lots of talk about the potential roll• The creation of differential tariffs for support in the short to medium term. out. The first phase of the Feed-in tariff scheme microCHP would create unnecessary MicroCHP has the greatest immediate for microCHP has been beyond disappointing. logistical problems – HHIC supports a potential of any emerging low carbon domestic The number of boilers is almost non-existent: uniform tariff for microCHP. microgeneration solution. Of the 26 million a fraction. We set the 30,000 limit, worried that there would be a surge of deployment, but there has been 1% of that.” This poses a direct challenge to the microCHP industry, now is the time to become serious about making domestic installations a reality rather than an aspiration.Therefore work will need to be done across all the interest groups and manufacturers to agree a roadmap of how By Isaac Occhipinti we get to one million microCHP boilers by 2020. This may require support and incentives, but without a unified and clear vision the industry may fall short. This could have negative consequences with regards to future support from government who may no longer wish to back a product that could not act on its own promises. So the next few years are going to be vital in the evolution of domestic and microCHP products in the UK. With 90% of all heating products in 2020 still predicted to be gas boilers the market potential is out there, we now need to work on realising it.
MEMBER NEWS
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>> MARKET SIGNPOST INDUSTRY UPDATE UPDATE
MARKET UPDATE
Each quarter we will bring you an update on the heating market, with a focus on boiler sales. This update replaces the quarterly Boiler Sales Update which HHIC used to distribute as a separate publication.
Highlights • Boiler sales suffer set back • Solar Thermal drop as RHPP doesn’t have desired effect
2
011 turned out to be a very poor year for the UK boiler industry with sales down by a record amount. This can partially be explained by the lack of cold weather, with Christmas temperatures well above the average. It can also be explained by a fall in the number of housing transactions, so removing one of the traditional boiler ‘change’ triggers. However the key problem has been the severe slump in the UK economy. Householders are facing job insecurity and so are unwilling to spend money on large items. It is no surprise then that ‘regular’ boiler sales are down by nearly 15% compared to ‘combi’ Boilers, with householders braving the cold and using the immersion heater rather than replacing the whole boiler. The numbers demonstrate that the RHPP has not had the desired effect, with Solar Thermal sales figures declining at their fastest rate since we have started collating the industry statistics.This could be a knock
on effect from the Solar PV Feed in tariff announcements. It could also be a natural reaction to home owners having less disposable income. With no announcement on the domestic RHI, numbers are expected to remain depressed.
ECOMOMIC OVERVIEW The heating market is influenced by a range of factors many of which involve decisions based on economic factors. Some of these are outlined below.
Inflation Recent changes in RPI and CPI annual rates were as follows: Oct 11
Nov 11 Dec 11
CPI change 5.0 (%)
4.8
4.2
5.4
5.2
4.8
RPI change (%)
Gas Boiler Sales Q4 2011 v Q4 2010 Q4 2011 Oct
Nov
Q4 2011 Dec
Total boiler 150.1 141.4 94.4 sales (000’s)
Oct
Nov
Annual Comparison Dec
Q4 11 Q4 10 % – Q1 11 – Q1 10 change 159.4 168.4 119.1 1473.4 1599.3 -7.9%
Solar Thermal Heating Sales by m2 Q4 2011 v Q4 2010 Q4 2011
Q4 2010
% change
Q4 2011 – Q1 2011
Q4 2010 – Q1 2010
% change
Flat Plate
11,320.4
16,786
-32.6%
60,793.7
69,640.3
-12.7%
Vacuum tube
2,557.9
3,666.6
-30.2%
16,118.5
18621.2
-13.4%
Total
13,878.4
20,452.6
-32.1%
76,912.2
88,261.6
-12.9%
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INDUSTRY MARKET CONTENTS UPDATE << The headlines for the December 2011 Consumer Prices Index (CPI) are: • CPI annual inflation stands at 4.2 per cent in December 2011, down from 4.8 per cent in November. The last time there was a larger fall in annual inflation was between November and December 2008, when the standard rate of VAT was reduced, and the rate fell from 4.1 per cent to 3.1 per cent. • The largest downward pressures to the change in CPI annual inflation between November and December came from petrol, gas and clothing. • The only large upward pressure to the change in CPI annual inflation between November and December came from landline and mobile phone charges • RPI annual inflation stands at 4.8 per cent in December, down from 5.2 per cent in November. This is the largest fall in annual inflation since between May and June 2009 when the rate fell from -1.1 per cent to -1.6 per cent.The largest downward pressures to the change in RPI annual inflation between November and December 2011 came from petrol, oil & other fuels, gas and clothing & footwear. Partially offsetting these were upward pressures from car insurance and telephone charges. Source: Office for National Statistics
Interest Rates The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5%. Source: Bank of England
Domestic Fuel Prices The most recent figures available from the Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC) are for Q2 2011 and these are compared with Q2 2010.
Domestic Fuel Prices Indices: Gas
Electricity
Heating oils
Q4 2011
224.2
177.9
204.0
Q4 2010
182.2
155.0
174.3
% comparison
+23.0
+14.8
+17.0
House Prices 2010
2011
Oct
£164,381
£165,650
Nov
£163,398
£165,798
Dec
£162,793
£163,822
Average
£163,244
£164,785
Q4 2011 data shows that the prices paid for all fuel and light have risen by 18.9 per cent between Q4 2010 and Q4 2011. Prices rose by 8.7 per cent between Q3 2011 and Q4 2011. Domestic electricity prices, including VAT, rose by 14.8 per cent in the year to Q4 2011. Domestic gas prices, including VAT, rose by 23.0 per cent in the year to Q4 2011. The price of coal and smokeless fuels increased by 8.0 per cent and the price of heating oils increased by 17.0 per cent between Q4 2010 and Q4 2011. Source: DECC
House Prices “Average house prices in the UK rose by a modest 0.3% in the fourth quarter. The annual rate of change increased from -0.5% to 1.1%. “London saw the strongest quarterly growth rate, with prices up 2.6% quarter-on-quarter. This pushed the annual rate of growth up to 5.4%, making London the best performing region over the past year. “Most English regions ended the year with
prices higher than Q4 2010. Only the North and North West saw price falls, with average prices down 1.0% and 1.2% respectively. Source: Nationwide
New Build Homes In October 2011, the number of new homes registered (7,781) was 22% lower than October 2010 (10,028) and; • 5,894 new homes were registered in the private sector, 14% down on October 2010 (6,847). • During the month, 1,887 new homes were registered in the public sector (compared with 3,181 in 2010 - a 41% drop). For the rolling quarter August - October 2011 the number of registrations was 26,509, 9% down on the same period last year (29,015). Of these: • Private sector registrations in August - October decreased by 1% (19,692), compared with the same period in 2010 (19,971). • Public sector registrations in August October decreased by 25% (to 6,817) when compared with the same period a year ago (9,044). For calendar year to date the number of new homes registered (101,651) is 3% higher than the same period in 2010 (98,224) • Private sector registrations are up 4% from 65,830 in 2010, to 68,364 year to date in 2011. • Public sector registrations are up 3% from 32,394 in 2010, to 33,287 year to date in 2011 Source NHBC
Housing and Property Transactions The total number of property transactions was up to 79,000 in November 2011, a rise of 8.2% Source Construction Products Association
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>> CLIMATE WEEK
LIVE LOW CARBON
THANK YOU for your participation and support of Climate Week in 2012
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CLIMATE WEEK <<
W
e all know community is important and by working together in various different areas, then this can result in real change. In today’s busy modern world, some may argue that the value of community is almost non-existent because people live in isolated family bubbles. However, campaigns like Climate Week suggest otherwise and highlight the many achievements obtained when people work united for a common goal. Climate Week is the UK’s biggest climate change campaign, and aims to shine a spotlight on the positive solutions to climate change happening across the UK. Culminating in a week of activities, it showcases practical solutions from every sector of society. Organisations from businesses to schools and faith groups run events during Climate Week to showcase the work they are doing to tackle climate change. By providing a platform for organisations to share their solutions with others, Climate Week aims to inspire millions more people to take action. This year Climate Week was held from 12-18 March and was supported by the HHIC. Climate Week is backed by individuals including the Prime Minister David Cameron, Mary Robinson, and Sir Paul McCartney. Many organisations including the CBI, the Construction Industry Council, the NHS and Department of Defence, and the Met Office are also supporting the campaign.
Climate Week was supported by Headline Partner, Tesco, and Supporting Partners Nissan, H&M, EDF Energy and SodaStream. Kevin Steele, the founder of Climate Week, said:“Our planet is fragile and the window of opportunity to act is short. We need to involve every sector of society if we are to create a secure future. And the good news is that, as a society, we have the solutions needed to solve this challenge. Climate Week
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shines a spotlight on all of the great work going on across society, and encourages many others to get involved in what’s happening in their sector, profession or neighbourhood. Then, together, we will raise our game.” Although Climate Week has passed for another year you can still show your support for action against climate change by incorporating some easy Live Low Carbon solutions into your everyday routines.
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>> CLIMATE WEEK
Eat Low Carbon Start to make food a part of the solution to climate change by eating lower carbon meals to make every week Climate Week. You can have a low carbon meal by following one, or all, of these three tips: • LESS – eat less meat and dairy: Meat and dairy have high carbon footprints. Why not make one of your meals a vegetarian or vegan one? • LOCAL – eat local, seasonal ingredients: Choose ingredients that haven’t come from half way around the world. Eat a meal with fresh British produce that hasn’t been kept in cold storage for months. • LEFTOVERS – eat food that would otherwise be thrown away: Turn yesterday’s dinner into today’s lunch. Instead of throwing it in the bin find a way to turn it into a tasty treat for later
Switch It OFF!
Recycle unusual things like batteries, or electrical goods such as mobile phones. Express your creativity by turning tired or old clothing into exciting new outfits.
saucepan with the lid on. Bring a canvas bag when you go to the shops. Small changes help the environment and save money.
Inspire Others Walk, Cycle or Use Public Transport Outside of Climate Week there are always opportunities to find more sustainable ways to get to where you are going. Take the train or bus instead of driving. Share your car with others to save on fuel costs, and be more sociable. Take advantage of the spring weather and walk or cycle, getting some additional exercise.
Make a Difference with Small Changes Find a way to encourage people to make simple, easy, but effective changes to their lifestyles. Boil just enough water in the kettle. Boil a
Start a ‘Green Champions’ scheme in the workplace. Encourage people in your local community to save energy or to grow their own vegetables. Get people to think about what they buy, and where they buy it from. Tell people what you are passionate about. Kevin said:“All across society, there are people developing new solutions to create a world which is cleaner, greener, more sustainable and healthier, and that can deliver economic prosperity. The aim of Climate Week, as a national occasion, is to annually renew our confidence and ambition to combat climate change.” For more information about Climate Week, visit www.climateweek.com
You can make a huge impact by finding ways to avoid wasting energy in your organisation or home. Make sure that things that use electricity, such as computer monitors or laptop chargers, are turned off when they are not needed. Doing this overnight, or on the weekend, can result in savings in energy use, money, and carbon.
Swap, Recycle, or Upcycle Old Things Eliminate waste by finding a second life for things that would otherwise be thrown away. Host an event to swap unwanted items, such as books, toys, or clothes, with friends or colleagues/
24 MARCH 2012
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21/3/12 14:17:30
CLIMATE WEEK <<
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MARCH 2012 25
13/3/12 11:58:20
>> COMMUNITY ENERGY PIONEERS IN FINLAND
inen
Martiska By Mari
, in of Sussex y it rs e iv nd U, Un up in SPR haviour a y e ro b G r y e m rg u nerg x Ene cons munity e the Susse ntred on m e d o c e c s in s a a jo h h ri Ma suc arch is also . Her rese links to concepts ves. She ti ia it in l y July 2006 a and, with agement via loc old energ m d e n d a y w rg e tober ene on. In Oc older eng tes surrounding n ti h e ra k e ta n s e and arch eba icrog ces Rese er and m d in the d n w te ie o s c p S re r l te a y a in as nucle ity Energ nd Physic n h a u c u g m s n s m ri o e ie g n of C ngine ocial technolo rted an E Innovatio a BA in S s ta e s a th h ri a ri in l a M y 2010, gdom. M ironmenta PhD stud v in d n K E e d d in n e it c fu e Un n MS ly Council nd and th of Helsinki and a previous s la a in h F ri in a rsity n. M Projects . the Unive al College Londo m o fr orld.com s e rw c e ri k e n p u b Im Scien K and gy from ewableU n Technolo e R r fo worked
26 MARCH 2012
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COMMUNITY ENERGY PIONEERS IN FINLAND <<
Residential block switches from oil to renewables Problems caused by climate change and rising energy prices have meant that households and communities are seeking new ways in which to tackle their increasing energy consumption and related costs. By working together, communities have the power to mobilise their members and develop sustainable energy projects such as renewable energy generation or energy efficiency measures. Two communities in Finland,Ylä-Kivelä and Kaakonoja, involve two completely different types of community energy activities, but they have shared motives, experiences and learning about developing a local sustainable energy project. In 2009 Ylä-Kivelä, an apartment block in central Finland, became one of the first private apartment blocks in the country to replace a 30-year old oil heating system with a renewable energy system. The red-brick building was built in the 1980s and is located in a leafy part of Keuruu. Its 40 apartments have around 5060, mostly owner-occupier residents. The block’s caretaker and past resident, Lauri Lahtinen, had been considering alternatives to oil for some time, largely affected by the block’s increasing heating costs. Rises in global oil prices had been heavily reflected also on the price of oil-based residential heating. One of the options was to join the local district heating network, but this too had its drawbacks as Keuruu has one of the most expensive district heating in Finland. Hence Lahtinen, together with the block’s management board, started to consider alternative options. They were aware that another apartment block in Keuruu had replaced its oil-based heating system with a biomass system in 2007 and had had positive user experiences. Based on positive feedback and installer recommendations,YläKivelä opted for a heating system which included a pellet boiler and solar thermal heating collectors. Affordability and locality were key in Ylä-Kivelä’s decision-making. The pellets, for instance, come from a nearby town, and Ylä-Kivelä initially signed a 2-year contract with the supplier. The project was jointly funded by the residents (85%) and the Finnish Government’s Energy Fund (15%), which allocates capital grants to energy projects. Residents were given the opportunity to pay their share of the new heating system either by a one-off payment or pay it as a loan over five years. Effectively the apartment block took a loan for the five-year payments and these were added to each apartment’s monthly service maintenance charge (which
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>> COMMUNITY ENERGY PIONEERS IN FINLAND
worked out around EUR 0.70 / square metre). Around 1/3 of the residents paid their share by the one-off payment and the rest took out the loan option. Funding for the project was relatively easy and low risk, as the loan was guaranteed by the apartment block. The residents at Ylä-Kivelä have been happy with the project, especially the solar thermal collectors, and feel that they have installed something truly new and rather innovative. Several of the residents had little previous knowledge about renewable energy, relying mainly on the information they were given by various suppliers and caretaker Lahtinen. After initial technical adjustments to the pellet system, the heating system has been working well and the block has made considerable savings. Compared to a same size apartment block which is connected to the local district heating network in the same neighbourhood, the Ylä-Kivelä block has witnessed savings of around EUR 8,500 per year in the first two years of the pellet-solar system’s operation. Furthermore, the Ylä-Kivelä block was chosen as the Housing Company of the Year in 2009 by the Finnish Housing Company Association, receiving a EUR 1,000 reward.
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Ylä-Kivelä apartment block with a pellet storage shed on the left
Residents’ association creates their own expertise Kaakonoja Area Residents’ Association is a residential community association based in Valkeakoski, central Finland. It was formed as a not-for-profit organisation in 1983 and has approximately 250 members consisting of detached houses built in the 1950s and 1960s. The association has been active in organising events for its members, including spring garden clearing, theatre visits and trips abroad. In 2008, two of the association’s members initiated a project identifying air
and ground source heat pumps suitable for their area. At the time several heat pump models were entering the Finnish market, but the residents in Kaakonoja found it difficult to identify reliable sources regarding information on various heat pump models. Hannu Mäkelä, a retired journalist, and his neighbour of 30years and a retired electrical engineer Tuomo Knuuttila, had seen their heating bills soar year-by-year and they wanted to explore ways in which to save energy. In order to fill this gap, the Kaakonoja heat pump project was set up to rank available heat pump models according to
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COMMUNITY ENERGY PIONEERS IN FINLAND <<
certain variables (such as maximum heating output, outside temperature range within which the models operate, cooling power, energy efficiency, noise, guarantee etc.). A total of 82 heat pump models were selected for the project, of which 46 were rated. This eventually led to three air source heat pump models being chosen as the most suitable for the Kaakonoja area houses. To set the project up, the residents’ association sought external funding and expert knowledge in heat pump technology. Most of the funding was awarded by the EU Leader funding programme (90%), while the residents’ association covered some of the costs (10%). The local Valkeakoski Vocational College and Tampere University of Technology provided specialist technical advisors for the project. Through the creation of the heat pump project, the Kaakonoja residents’ association effectively built their own network and knowledge base of energy technology. They also readily spread their findings and organised a “heat pump day” with presentations from installers and which was open to the general public. They expected around 100 visitors but were taken by surprise as almost 700 attended. The Kaakonoja residents had high expectations for their project. Their main motive was to find independent and reliable information on heat pumps and they feel that this has been achieved. During the project, around 120 households were considering installing a heat pump and at the end of 2011, 90 houses had done so. Furthermore, those who have installed a heat pump have had good user experiences with them, which were no doubt aided by the fact that the installers were given the requirement to also include user guidance in any installation undertaken at Kaakonoja. Mäkelä’s own data collection for instance has shown more savings on heating bills than he had initially anticipated and his living comfort has increased. His house tends
to be more evenly heated in winter and he has also been able to utilise the cooling option in the recent hot summers.
Funding and leaders key, aided by existing community cohesion Both cases,Ylä-Kivelä and Kaakonoja, are community energy pioneers in their own right. They involved technologies that were new to the communities and of which the residents had little previous knowledge. Both cases also had so called ‘community leaders’ initiating the projects. In Ylä-Kivelä, Lahtinen was a trusted figure in the apartment block through his somewhat nostalgic caretaker role – most of these jobs have been outsourced to external management companies - and the residents were willing to listen to him. In Kaakonoja, Mäkelä was a leading figure in the local community. He had for instance a reputation as being the association’s travel agent and had successfully organised several trips for them. However, these men were not purely dictating what others were to do. In both
Air source heat pump in Kaakonoja
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cases, there was existing community cohesion and several activities that the residents had arranged together and which had benefitted their neighbourhood. Neither of the projects would have come alive without some type of external funding, either in the form of loans or grants. This is often the reason why community energy projects struggle. They have the will and some skills to get started, but without external sources of funding projects have difficulty coming off the ground. In the UK for instance, around 200 communities are benefiting this year from the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Local Energy Assessment Fund, but not all countries have the same policy support. Residents in the two Finnish communities felt that there was a need for more open political discussion about the potential of local sustainable energy projects and actors like households or communities becoming active participants in the energy system. The residents felt that the potential for community energy and projects such as theirs is large but there are still barriers to development. In addition to political support and funding, projects also need creation of knowledge. Not only within communities but also at the level of decision makers who may not know how sustainable energy projects can be delivered at the local level. There is a clear need for more demonstration projects, in order to show political leaders what works in real life. Projects need external support, but also an open mind from everyone involved. As one resident in Ylä-Kivelä described it, their project required courage from the residents, given that no one else had installed exactly the same kind of a pellet-solar system at the same scale before. Any successful community energy project is down to the hard work and persistence of the communities themselves, also involving the willingness to try something new and perhaps out of the ordinary.
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>> TAKING SIGNPOST THE DISTRICT LINE
TAKING THE DISTRICT LINE By Simon Osborne, SpeciďŹ cation Channel Manager for Baxi
Carbon reductions could be the main driver for the introduction of district heating systems powered by combined heat and power (CHP).
30 MARCH 2012
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TAKING THE DISTRICT LINE << CONTENTS
D
ECC statistics indicate that in the 1990s, carbon dioxide emissions related to power station generated electricity amounted to some 40 per cent of the total UK man-made carbon dioxide emissions during that period. Given this information, any technology that generates electricity at the point of use looks very attractive from both an environmental and cost-saving perspective. Combined heat and power provides a realistic, reliable and proven solution, producing energy efficient, ‘green’ electricity. The obligation to meet carbon reduction targets makes district heating and communal CHP in particular, an increasingly popular
choice for large, medium and small scale projects especially as communal CHP is classed as an allowable solution in the definition of zero carbon homes. Large scale district heating – perhaps a complete housing development or large block of flats – could be provided by a large CHP plant. These facilities could be run by an energy supply company (ESCO), which would build and install the plant, run and maintain it over an agreed number of years, and charge occupants for the energy they use. Social housing providers tend to choose not to be tied in to long term contracts, and prefer to be owner operators.
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For medium sized applications, such as sheltered housing, hospitals, leisure centres and fire stations, a mini-CHP appliance provides a perfect solution. During its lifetime, it can deliver up to 440,000kWh of electricity and 1,200 MW of usable heat at a combined efficiency of over 90 per cent. It provides electrical generation close to the point of use at a substantially lower cost and carbon impact than conventional power stations, without the associated energy losses that occur during transmission. Multiple Mini CHP units can be used in tandem, and for multioccupancy dwellings, a heat box in each property monitors and measures
MARCH 2012 31
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>> TAKING THE DISTRICT LINE
energy use and can either provide instantaneous hot water, in a similar way to a combi boiler, or channel hot water to a storage cylinder. For smaller district heating projects, microCHPappliances installed in tandem and with heat boxes for
individual dwellings are an excellent option. This type of appliance is a wall hung high efficiency boiler that generates up to 1kW electricity using a Free Piston Stirling Engine while it produces space heating and hot water.
“DECC statistics indicate that in the 1990s, carbon dioxide emissions related to power station generated electricity amounted to some 40 per cent of the total UK man-made carbon dioxide emissions during that period. Given this information, any technology that generates electricity at the point of use looks very attractive from both an environmental and cost-saving perspective. Combined heat and power provides a realistic, reliable and proven solution, producing energy efficient, ‘green’ electricity.”
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While for the foreseeable future, there will be continued dependence on significant amounts of centrally generated electricity; the focus of UK energy policies now is to drive energy generation by direct user initiatives. These encourage a mixture of solutions based on microgeneration. It is no surprise, then, that there is increasing use of alternative power sources like CHP combined with complementary technologies to reduce carbon emissions even further. For example, electricity generated by on-site CHP can be used to power electric heat pumps, significantly increasing the energy saving and carbon reduction benefits of each technology. The configuration of mini-CHP and microCHPpackages means they can be easily and quickly integrated with existing services, and can reduce the
HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL
20/3/12 11:59:33
TAKING THE DISTRICT LINE <<
“While for the foreseeable future, there will be continued dependence on significant amounts of centrally generated electricity, the focus of UK energy policies now is to drive energy generation by direct user initiatives. These encourage a mixture of solutions based on microgeneration.” building’s carbon footprint by up to 35 per cent. Projects using district heating can also have more control over fuel prices because of the ability to buy in bulk rather than individually. Because district heating can remove the need for separate gas appliances in properties, there is no need for annual access for boiler servicing. This is particularly useful in social housing and sheltered accommodation, where the worry of gaining access to the property and disturbing the residents is removed. The SAP benefit of communal CHP is such that it provides newbuild specifiers with buildings meeting levels four and five of the Code for
Sustainable Homes for a lower cost than conventional heating types. CHP is subject to a lower VAT rate of five per cent, and is also eligible for claiming Enhanced Capital Allowances to reduce Corporation Tax. Both the electricity produced and the fuels consumed are exempt from the Climate Change Levy. To conclude, it is worth saying a word or two about getting the most out of CHP district heating schemes. Firstly, the system needs to be optimised to ensure maximum electrical generation at the lowest possible network temperatures. Secondly, it is important to involve all the stakeholders and end users
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in the decision process. This includes providing information on how to maximise comfort and minimise energy bills, explaining meter readings and charges, and maintaining communications to ensure ongoing and complete understanding of the system and how it works. Well designed and installed CHP systems will reduce carbon emissions, reduce reliance on grid electricity, provide simple to manage comfort and reduce energy bills. What better reasons are there for taking the district line? For more information, please visit www.baxi.co.uk/ combinedheatandpower
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C O M N I M Y U G N O L
By Chris Laughton
S CT
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>> USING SOLAR TECHNOLOGY IN COMMUNITY ENERGY PROJECTS
US I N
What is a community energy project; and in particular, what is a solar energy community project? This appears to be an easy question but in fact such terms are not easy to deďŹ ne. This is surprising, as they are currently making regular appearances in various press releases and government consultations. 34 MARCH 2012
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USING SOLAR TECHNOLOGY IN COMMUNITY ENERGY PROJECTS << The initial reaction from many has been that community energy projects concern a not-for-profit activity. However, the expression ‘community’ does also suggest a sense of physical limitation and scale. So the term is given meaning by a combination of factors. The project would need to be carried out by a local individual or body whose main business was not energy generation, so as to exclude profit-led private Energy Supply Companies. The term also implies an association of people who, although geographically separated, share a common interest; or where those involved live within a defined geographic border. Hence, the core of the definition of ‘community’ suggests a form of common ownership whether legally defined or just by way of association. For example, most would consider applications concerning a church hall, a state school or self-governed communal housing as a community energy project. Examples that are less likely to enjoy this status would include
individual house owners using their own funds, a corporate HQ building or a field full of collectors owned by an absentee land owner. Sometimes also called social enterprises, community projects are typically run by parish councils, community co-operatives (Industrial and Provident Societies), voluntary associations, faith groups, registered social landlords, sports clubs, charities and sometimes local authorities. Such social enterprises are characterised by freely sharing project information, redistributing profits and facilitating public access. In general, these organisations form an important part of the fabric of society and could even be considered to be part of the coalition’s Big Society policy. Solar energy has considerable appeal to community energy projects as the sun’s radiation is seen as being in common ownership and hence suitable for sharing. In effect, the sun shines for free. However, the equipment used to collect and store
solar energy is anything but free, and subject to considerable misselling. In 2010 Which? Magazine ran an undercover investigation that found that 10 out of 14 installers exaggerated the potential savings of installing a solar thermal system. When planning solar energy installations for community projects it is essential that project leaders take all necessary variables into account. These variables include complex and non-standard heat profiles; shading information from building and ground objects (e.g. chimneys or trees) and the horizon line; climate data from that particular location; and, of course, financial analysis that accounts for incentive schemes such as the RHI tariffs. Taking all variables into account is a complex task. Of course, applying a one-size-fits-all approach must be avoided for all system installations; but such concerns become increasingly important for community projects because heating needs are often extremely complex.
“Solar energy has considerable appeal to community energy projects as the sun’s radiation is seen as being in common ownership and hence suitable for sharing. In effect, the sun shines for free.” An example of a successful project to install over 70 metres of solar thermal collectors on two sheltered accommodation blocks in Colwyn Bay. IImage: Im age: SOLFEX energy systems
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>> USING SOLAR TECHNOLOGY IN COMMUNITY ENERGY PROJECTS
Case study of a successful community project using solar thermal in Ayrshire, west Scotland – Radio City, Kilbirnie Radio City is a former art deco cinema, with listed building status, located in the town of Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland. It is currently being used to provide community facilities including a gym, radio station, café and office spaces. Due to these overlapping uses, the Radio City building has extensive and complex hot water needs. It was decided to install a solar thermal system to reduce both the running costs and carbon emissions of the building by minimising the necessary contribution from the existing gas boiler.The company behind the project was Kinross-based Glendevon Energy, suppliers and installers of solar thermal, PV, biomass and heat pumps.They specified 240 solar thermal vacuum tubes to feed into a pre-heat system to help meet up to 70% of the multi-use building’s annual hot water needs. It was hoped that around 13MWh could be generated by the solar thermal installation from a 25m2 roof-mounted array, which in turn would mitigate in excess of 3,500kg of CO2 emissions each year. Designers used software to model different types and quantities of collectors, experiment with different volumes of buffer and storage tanks, and see how varying usage profiles would affect the overall performance of the system.The fact that the location was in Scotland rather than the sunny south of the UK also needed to be considered. As northern locations receive much lower levels of irradiance (sunlight), available energy yields are lower, so the solar system must be sized to take regional variations into account. Relying on generic UK-wide data would result in a significantly undersized system. The design was optimised to meet as much of the demand as possible (a high solar fraction) with maximum efficiency.This was made possible by running multiple side-by-side comparisons of similar designs, varying in one or two fundamental ways (e.g. a range of buffer tank volumes) in the software. This process, known as variant comparison, is a powerful design tool because it generates various possible solutions.These options can then be whittled down to the winning design by entering the simulation outputs into a simple spreadsheet for a quick economic analysis. Solar thermal vacuum tubes were picked for this particular project due to their excellent performance in northern European climates as well as their unobtrusive appearance: a key factor for such an architecturally important building. 240 solar thermal vacuum tubes installed on the roof of Radio City.
The users of Radio City are now enjoying the cost- and carbon-cutting benefits of solar pre-heating, and the historic town of Kilbirnie can boast a model of sustainability: a 21st Century solution for energy demand, combining modern renewable technology with state-of-the-art computer design.
Julian Pett, The Solar Design Company
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A community project can help its recipients not only by coalescing greater resources but also through bulk purchasing. Solar energy per se has several uses; not least that it usefully enters through windows and skylights to provide illumination of interior places. This energy can also provide useful heat, known as passive solar heating, although too much can lead to over-heating. But the ability to intentionally store solar heat is what makes solar thermal technology much more pertinent to our lifestyles. Once stored, it can be drawn upon to suit our heating requirements or loads.This is why the storage of heat is as important as collecting solar radiation. In comparison, the storage of electricity is heavily constrained by battery technology and is rarely considered viable apart from by the enthusiast or those off-grid. Over the past year, the generation of electricity from solar radiation from photovoltaic modules (PV) has grabbed the headlines with surprisingly high rates of return being offered by the government’s Feed-in Tariff (FIT).There has been little incentive under this scheme to attempt electricity storage in any form, since the vast majority of such systems are grid-connected. However, for those premises which are already heating Domestic Hot Water (DHW) using electric immersion resistance elements, the opportunity lies in diverting any grid-bound spill-over, which is in excess of the building’s local requirements, into a DHW storage cylinder. In effect, hot water can be used to store electrical PV energy,
“Solar thermal technology is well established in the UK but its integration into community heating is in its infancy. There is much to learn from exemplar systems in other countries, and the RHI brings new financial opportunities to this sector.” HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL
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USING SOLAR TECHNOLOGY IN COMMUNITY ENERGY PROJECTS << The different processes of solar energy. Image: Solar Heating Design and Installation Guide
hence displacing whatever other energy sources might be available. Without the effect of subsidies, a comparison between the seasonal efficiency of a PV system at around 10% is over a quarter of that of a solar thermal (ST), which can easily exceed 40%. So a community energy project would quite reasonably look first towards the more established ST technologies rather than PV, as these give better energy density per area of roof. Given that we now have the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) for all but non-single households, this means that in many cases there are at least two different government subsidies effectively in competition with each other for heating DHW. So some careful sums have to be done to compare the financial prudence of each choice; although community energy projects often have other factors to consider, such as educational value in the case of a school. For non-DHW applications, including underfloor space heating and swimming pools, the energy requirements are so dense as to effectively dismiss the PV option in favour of ST where the choice exists. While the government has promised that the RHI will eventually apply to single households, the current emphasis for ST is for the following eligible RHI applications, assuming this will be for end users of DHW, space heating or internal swimming pools in permanent buildings: • Multiple domestic premises, e.g. district heating supplying a block of flats. • Multiple non-domestic and domestic premises (mixed use), e.g. office space and residential flats. • District heating — which includes a central solar thermal array serving distribution for an apartment building
or a network of pipes delivering heat from a central installation to a number of local households or businesses. Whilst RHI eligible, using heat for processes such as food preparation, commercial cooking or cooling are not likely to be community-driven projects. Furthermore, since the summer export of excess energy external to a building is not eligible for RHI, this puts a clearer emphasis on applying ST heat where there are heat requirements in keeping with the seasonal variation of solar irradiation. In other words, the most cost-effective applications will have a significant heat demand through summer.
Design software is readily available for solar thermal community projects that are RHI compatible. Image: T*SOL Expert 4.5
If this logic holds true, then applications that involve schools which normally remain empty through summer will be less viable than ones that hold adult, sports or swimming summer classes. It should be stressed that ST technology can be designed to simply switch off when there is no load to apply. But this earns nothing under the RHI scheme, which pays against a generation heat meter that is fitted by the installer as part of the system. So ST projects are more likely to succeed against the other financial options with larger summer loads.
Resources: • The Solar Design Company: www.solardesign.co.uk • The Rough Guide to Community Energy, Duncan Clark & Malachi Chadwick: ISBN 978-1-40538-652-4 • Solar Domestic Water Heating: The Earthscan Expert Handbook for Planning, Design and Installation, Chris Laughton: ISBN 978-1-84407-736-6 • Solar Heating Design and Installation Guide: ISBN 978-1-903287-84-2 • UKDEA UK District Energy Association: www.ukdea.org.uk • OFGEM: www.ofgem.gov.uk
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The applications that currently hold the greatest opportunity for community ST energy projects under the RHI are those that serve multiple users through a distribution circuit, frequently referred to as district or indeed community heating. Here a centralised solar thermal array is assembled either on the ground or on a large roof, located away from shade. Nearby large tanks, possibly underground, are used as a buffer between the supply of energy and the demand. Such systems are ideal for combining with a large central biomass boiler which is also RHI eligible.These two heat sources are in good seasonal synchronisation with each other and are time-proven combinations in continental Europe. Solar thermal technology is well established in the UK but its integration into community heating is in its infancy. There is much to learn from exemplar systems in other countries, and the RHI brings new financial opportunities to this sector. Chris Laughton, FIDHEE, author of Solar Domestic Water Heating: The Earthscan Expert Handbook for Planning, Design and Installation.
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WORKING LIVES
>> WORKING LIVES
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Mike Foster
By Jodie Wiltshire
It is all change at SBGI. With a new name on the horizon, different vision and a strategic goal that reďŹ&#x201A;ects a broader range of activity, the new Chief Executive role is not for a shy and retiring type but requires a tenacious and freethinking spirit. Meet Mike Foster.
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WORKING LIVES <<
F
Former Minister of International Development, Mike Foster meets with Bill Clinton
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oster’s initial career path in the West Midland car industry gave him the solid background in manufacturing while he also undertook the professional training to qualify as an accountant. That said, he had for a long time considered teaching as a career and it was considered by some to be a “brave” move to leave a well-paid job in the car industry to become a teacher. He explains: “I had great fun teaching, especially when you consider the topics I taught – accountancy, economics and statistics. As nearly every teacher will tell you, the interaction with your students is what motivates you. It is challenging of course, you are put on the spot regularly, but there is no greater sense of satisfaction when one of your students gets the grade they wanted to pass the course, qualify or go onto university.” Foster is not adverse to change and his career moved from educator to leader. But why did he choose politics? “I had always been interested in politics – I joined the Labour Party aged 16, so when the chance came along to seek the nomination to represent the Labour Party in Worcester (where I taught and lived) I took it. I was lucky enough to be selected to stand for Labour and was part of the 1997 Tony Blair landslide that won seats like Worcester.” People are concerned with having an influence over their terms of existence, present and future. We want our politicians to fight for our rights to have an acceptable life. But it is not always easy dealing with members of the public who are angry, distressed and quite often facing desperate situations. “For 13 years, I held four surgeries a month, seeing literally thousands of people so you can imagine there are one or two “interesting” tales to tell. From the absurd, someone bringing their dog to the surgery and asking me to take care of it as it was too big for them; to the harrowing, parents with their children having no roof over their heads that night. During my time, I had three Private Members’ Bills, all of which eventually became law. There’s the famous/infamous one (depends upon your view) that banned hunting with dogs; one that supported all pensioners getting a free bus pass (based on the experience of my two late grandmothers – one living in Birmingham who travelled on the bus free from when was 60, the other living near Cannock who had no bus pass). And the third, the simplest one by far called the School Crossing Patrol Bill, changed one word in the 1984 Road Traffic Act from “children” to “people” which meant your typical lollipop man or lady could legally stop cars to allow adults to cross a busy road whereas the original law only allowed children to be crossed,” he adds. A politician’s primary responsibility is to his party and its members and to get re-elected. Looking at this definition it is very similar to Foster’s new role as Chief Executive at the SBGI. Foster elaborates: “As the Chief Executive of the SBGI, my task is to provide strategic and operational leadership to the organisation, reporting to the SBGI Management Board. It
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“The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change.” Bill Clinton
>> WORKING LIVES
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means managing the development and growth of the organisation and its divisions in line with the vision the Board have set out. “SBGI has a great history and is incredibly well respected within the sector. Any changes I make will look to add to that impressive record in the light of new technologies and growth opportunities. One of the changes I am exploring is that surrounding the name of the organisation. What was founded as the Society of British Gas Industries became SBGI when it was deemed necessary to adopt a more modern title back in the 1980s. The challenge SBGI now faces is that although it is steeped in the gas industry, its members also are involved in renewables, or data and communications, and the utility companies who are members also work on water, electric and telecoms. So a name that reflects a broader range of activity is one of the changes I’m looking at.” Who wants a life half -lived. We all take many different paths in life if we are lucky and the more experiences we gain can only benefit those wise enough to absorb them. This seems to be true for Foster who moved up the ranks of backbencher to become International Development Minister under Gordon Brown and was a lifechanging experience for him. Foster adds:“Nothing, no end of TV documentaries or news items, prepares you for the first time you visit a refugee camp in the poorest parts of the world. Your perspective on life changes. I don’t know what I did to upset the Prime Minister, but I held the brief for emergency humanitarian relief which meant I was sent to some of the world’s trouble spots – like Sri Lanka during and just after the civil war; Gaza after the Israeli Operation Castlead; and Yemen with its civil strife and Al Qaeda insurgents. It was there, in the remote mountains of tribal Yemen, that one of the close protection officers assigned to me for
the visit uttered the reassuring words, “Don’t worry Mr Foster, they won’t take you alive.” “But I also had the responsibility of managing the UK emergency response to the earthquake in Haiti and saw both the generosity of the UK public and the Government’s ability to put together support that brought relief to thousands – including detailing the Royal Navy to assign one of their vessels to the scene. I visited Haiti two months after the earthquake and there met former US President Bill Clinton who was the US Special Representative to Haiti. He is an incredible politician and personality. From his greeting,“Hey DfID, I just love you guys” to a private one-to-one tutorial on his take on the upcoming UK general election (which he predicted the result with uncanny accuracy), as a junior Minister I was lucky to get that level of access and opportunity.” But nothing is written in stone. His relationship was with his real constituency - and he is accountable to them the same way a Chief Executive answers to the corporation’s major shareholders. Worcester had been a traditional conservative seat for years and to remain its MP for 14 years was probably no easy feat. Following the election, with the voters of Worcester copying the national trend, Foster lost his seat to Robin Walker MP. But Foster used his skills to good use and took up the post of Head of Communications at WaterAid. He said:“As Minister, water and sanitation was one of my policy areas so it made sense to work with the charity that I knew well and policy brief I was familiar with. We both knew it would be a short-term appointment. I just wanted to pass on my experience and knowledge while it was still fresh and useful for the charity.” It is not easy losing a job you love and are passionate about. Being quietly resigned to the fact that you managed to have opportunities that many people can only dream about is probably the best way to go to keep one’s sanity.
Foster agrees:“I have been very lucky to have worked with some incredibly talented people.Tony was a superb communicator and politician; Gordon was driven with immense desire to tackle inequalities. My old boss Douglas Alexander is a gifted politician and a real force, as is my former colleague David Miliband. I’m flattered to class them both as friends too.” Careers can become all consuming so down time is important and Foster enjoys most sports. “I’m a lifelong Birmingham City fan, and I played both football and cricket for the crossparty Parliamentary teams. I’m still bowling fodder for my cricket-playing daughter! I’m starting to get into golf (is it an age thing?) and enjoy “pottering” around the garden. “As for holiday destinations, well the French Alps or Austrian Tyrol for my love of skiing; Cornwall in the summer (I vowed to learn to surf but being 6 feet 5 makes it difficult so I’d welcome any tips) and I’ve a soft spot for the USA. “I enjoy reading Alistair Campbell’s diaries (even get a name check which is good). I’ve got a couple of “friends” who are political journalists so I’d better be careful here, but I rate Andrew Rawnsley, Michael White and for up to date blogging Paul Waugh.” So how will the political landscape shape Foster’s new role? He explains: “Political debate at the moment is framed by the financial outlook and economic prospects in the UK. For me, the need to stimulate growth is so blindingly obvious it is untrue. It is the only way of tackling the deficit. That is why schemes like Boiler Scrappage need to be reinstated. Getting people back into work means less spent on benefits, more paid in taxes on earnings but also on the higher levels of household spending. Even my former A level economics students would understand the argument in favour of a stimulus in times of low or zero growth. “Job creation in energy efficiency is a straightforward way of getting
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WORKING LIVES <<
“Nothing, no end of TV documentaries or news items, prepares you for the first time you visit a refugee camp in the poorest parts of the world. Your perspective on life changes. I don’t know what I did to upset the Prime Minister, but I held the brief for emergency humanitarian relief which meant I was sent to some of the world’s trouble spots – like Sri Lanka during and just after the civil war; Gaza after the Israeli Operation Castlead; and Yemen with its civil strife and Al Qaeda insurgents.”
people into work, reducing energy costs and helping hit carbon reduction targets. Green Deal offers the prospect but I know the sector has doubts about how it will work in practice. “I’m also concerned that the UK
will not meet its target to eliminate fuel poverty by 2016. This requires considerable efforts by Government and industry if this problem is to be tackled. And I make the point to our sector; it is actually in your interest
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to see this happen (through sales of more efficient and new products) as well as our social responsibility.” Foster concludes:“While I am convinced about the need to respond to climate change, I am not a “green
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>> WORKING LIVES
fundamentalist” on the issue. I also want the economics to be relevant. So my reductions in energy use at home have as much to do with cost as it does the environment. I suspect I am fairly typical in that approach.The best energy savings measure I employ is my nagging of teenage children about the need to turn off appliances and my monitoring of gas and electric meters.” “I have one hobbyhorse about making an ecological difference and I guess it
is fairly topical but actually stems from my days in WaterAid.The average cost in the UK of a cubic metre of water from the tap is 80 pence; in the slums of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania (with incomes a fraction of what we earn) clean water costs around £4 a cubic metre. So I have water butts and water saving devices in my home – yes I could do more, but I reflect upon the fact that 884 million people around the world don’t have access to clean water so I value the
access I have at home.” So as Foster settles into his new role, it will be an exciting time for our energy and utility members, staff and stakeholders. Going back to his first profession working for the car manufacturing industry this brings to mind the sentiment from the old Honda car advert that said,‘Change something, make something better’ and this can only be a good thing for all those involved in our future alliance.
Seminar for Gas Technicians UP/1B Tightness Testing of Domestic Installations 26th April 2012 - 10am – 3pm IGEM House, Kegworth £125 Members £150 Non Members Do you need to prove small installations are gas tight? Do you have to check installations are gas tight? Are you on the gas safe register? Then this is the course for you IGEM has recently updated its gas tight publication IGEM/UP/1B Edition 3, and will be holding a seminar to introduce the revised practices for proving small installations are gas tight. The event is a cost effective method for updating engineers with the expectations of Gas Safe Registered Inspectors and is therefore essential that Managers/Operatives in Gas Safe Registered Businesses and ACS Training Providers attend. The seminar will cover the procedures for the three common fuel gases – LPG/Air, Natural Gas and LPG. An explanation of the rationale for the procedures will be provided making it ideal preparation for future assessments or an opportunity for engineers who are considering up-skilling.
To book your place, please contact: events@igem.org.uk or call 01509 678161
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“We know that local ‘champions’ and local le aders are crucial for spurring communities into action; they are indeed best placed to know what will work in their own are a. And many have alre ady taken it upon themselves see what can be done. However, government, too, has an important role to play in laying a pathway for communities to follow.” Gregory Barker MP, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change
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