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The Role of Carbon Pricing

June 2020: A consortium of five London boroughs, Barking and Dagenham, Ealing, Greenwich, Haringey, and Westminster have commissioned and recently published the following study: “Towards Net Zero Carbon Achieving greater carbon reductions on site: The role of carbon pricing“. This report seeks to review the current planning guidance from the GLA on Carbon Offsetting, and in particular the carbon offset price recommended in that guidance. This new study presents the rationale for this work as follows: “the current carbon offset price (£60-£95/tCO2) and requirement of a minimum 35% carbon reduction do not incentivise sufficient savings on site. This means that new buildings have substantially higher carbon emissions that they should.” The GLA’s 2018 guidance document sets out that “Currently, the GLA’s recommended price for offsetting carbon is £60 per tonne. This is a nationally recognised non-traded price of carbon and is also the Zero Carbon Hub price.” However, the guidance also recognises the need to review this offset price level and states “To assess whether this price continues to be appropriate the GLA commissioned AECOM to carry out a study of possible carbon offset prices, considering both published carbon prices and the cost of undertaking various carbon reduction projects in London… The new draft London Plan includes a new recommended carbon offset price of £95 per tonne which was tested as part of the viability assessment. This is intended to be the price (Local Planning Authorities) LPAs adopt, unless LPAs have set their own local price. The recommended GLA carbon offset price will be reviewed regularly.” (the new London Plan reference to £95/tonne is referenced as footnote 155 on page 384 of the London Plan 2020). Note – the option is available to boroughs to set their own offset price – but there needs to be some evidence to support any such price being set.

This new study by the London boroughs is an attempt to do this – and sets out the following: “We have undertaken extensive energy modelling on several typologies of buildings. Our calculations demonstrate that the decarbonisation of the electricity grid means that, for the same specifications, a greater improvement over Part L is achieved with no extra effort/cost (‘60% is the new 35%’). On this basis, and given the consensus on the need and benefit of a ‘fabric first’ approach and low carbon heat, our recommendations are:

  • To incentivise on-site savings by adopting a high first tier price of £1,000/tCO2 for those easily avoidable and unnecessary residual emissions not met on-site, which fall short of a 60% improvement threshold (measured over Part L1A) for domestic and a 50% improvement threshold (measured over Part L2A) for non-domestic developments.
  • To incentive PV with the introduction of a medium carbon price second tier of £300/tCO2.
  • Finally, and only for residential applications for which it is easier to achieve this high level of performance than for nonresidential applications, we recommend a low carbon price
  • third tier of £100/tCO2 as a positive signal.

The report concludes with some further opportunities to ensure that zero carbon buildings take into account their full environmental impact.

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Energy and Climate Questions to the Mayor

October 2016: This month Mayor’s Question Time included the following:

whether an annual planning and energy assessment report will be published; higher energy costs for Londoners due to the Hinkley go-aheadsolar action plan consultation; supporting community energy projects through the Zero Carbon Homes policy; Energy for Londoners budget; the number of zero carbon homes projected to be in place in 2025 in the London Energy Scenarios report; the Mayor’s support for the Energy Bill Revolution campaign; the use of biomass in large scale centralised coal generating plant which supply power to London; the proposed increase in business rates on solar PV installations; supporting the Zero Carbon Homes policy in future revisions to the London Plan; supporting boroughs in the implementation of the Zero Carbon Homes policy; the range of options open to developers to meet the Zero Carbon Homes target; how forthcoming revisions to the London Plan will support the Zero Carbon Homes policy; the Energy Gardens programme and LPG conversion of London cabs.

Previous months questions to the Mayor can be found here.

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FAQ on ZCH

3 October 2016: London’s Zero Carbon Homes planning policy officially started on the 1st of October. Attending a recent industry workshop around the new ZCH rules – it’s clear that many organisations involved in the sector are still not quite aware of what this this all means. Hence answers to some of the most frequently asked questions raised follow below.

  • What exactly started on 1 October 2016?

All new planning applications in London for residential projects above 10 units will now need to provide an energy assessment which will set out how the development will achieve a zero carbon status.

  • When was this first announced?

There have been no announcements by the GLA that this new ZCH policy was going to commence from 1 October. Instead, information has largely had to be gleaned from new planning documentation and a number of recent responses by the Mayor to questions.  The new policy and its implications were first picked up in a post on the Energy for London website here, following the publication of a new GLA Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) document on Housing.

  • Where is detail behind this policy set out?

Three GLA planning documents set out the new policy requirements to some extent: they are the SPG on Sustainable Design and Construction; the SPG on Housing and a GLA Preparing Energy Assessment guidance paper.

  • Erm…anything shorter..?!

Continue reading…

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Future London Climate Risks Set Out

12 July 2016: The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) Adaptation Sub Committee (ASC) published a major new study today providing a detailed scientific assessment of climate change risks to UK. Further information is provided in the following press release, a summary synthesis report, which also links to the individual six sector chapters – which includes a chapter on ‘People and the Built Environment‘ (which is examined below)..

Below is a summary of some of the points most relevant to London from the synthesis report:

  • Urban water management: climate change is expected to lead to significant increases in heavy rainfall, with sewers in many urban areas already at or over capacity. More action is needed protect individual properties whilst also beginning to redesign urban landscapes (such as through the use of sustainable drainage approaches) to be able to cope with more intense patterns of rainfall. [p32]
  • At present, there are no comprehensive policies in place to adapt existing homes and other buildings to high temperatures, manage urban heat islands, nor safeguard new homes. The level of risk from overheating across the UK is unknown for hospitals, care homes, schools, prisons, and places of work. [p33]
  • The urban heat island effect. UK planning strategies do not currently make specific recommendations for reducing the heat island effect such as through planning and urban design, beyond promoting urban green space. [p34]
  • More action needed to deliver sustainable drainage systems, upgrade sewers where appropriate, and tackle drivers of increasing surface runoff (e.g. impermeable surfacing in urban areas). [p61]
  • Climate-related hazards damage historic structures and sites now, but there is a lack of information on the scale of current and future risks, including for historic urban green spaces and gardens as well as structures.[p66]
  • The action underway in London to assess and manage risks of overheating on public transport should continue, together with similar action as needed elsewhere in the UK. [p66]

Continue reading…

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Urban adaptation to climate change

July 2016: A new European Environment Agency (EEA) study Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe 2016 – Transforming cities in a changing climatehas just been published. The report  examines whether action on adaptation has led to more climate-resilient cities and if not, what needs to be changed.

The EEA has a few references to work undertaken in London such as:

  • “London is installing white panels on top of its public transport buses to reflect the rays of the summer sun and keep the vehicles cooler” (which refers to a 2014 article here). and that;
  • “London held a workshop on adaptation indicators in 2015 but as of November 2015 had not yet decided how it will take the work forward” (it is not immediately clear which workshops this comment refers to).

No mention is made in the study to London’s authoritative Climate Change Adaptation Strategy from 2011 or the London Plan’s climate change adaptation policies. (NB Mayor Boris Johnson had committed in February 2015 to produce an update to the adaptation strategy sometime in 2015. Following the non-publication of this update, responding to a question a year later, he committed to the update being produced before his departure as Mayor (May 2016) – however, as yet, no update has been released).

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London Zero Carbon Homes Update

4 July 2016: Included in this month’s Mayor’s Questions was a series of useful queries around an announcement made earlier this year that the GLA would introduce a Zero Carbon Homes planning policy from 1 October 2016 for all new major housing developments. London’s plans to g0-ahead with a zero carbon homes policy runs counter to that of national government, where 10 years of work to introduce a 2016 zero carbon policy was scrapped by the Chancellor in his Summer Budget 2015, an announcement which was widely condemned by the building industry. A recent (unsuccessful) attempt to overturn this decision, in the passage of the Housing and Planning Bill (see here), specifically cited London’s stance  as evidence of why the policy should be kept (see column 919 of the House of Lords debate – and reference to the GLA’s policy in House of Commons research paper here). The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee also stated in their recent Home Energy Efficiency report that the “decision damaged confidence in the low carbon economy and will lock in the requirement for future wide-scale energy efficiency measures and costly retrofits. We recommend that the Government reinstates the zero carbon homes policy or sets out a similar policy that will ensure that new homes generate no net carbon emissions.”

The Mayor’s responses clarified that:

  • Funds raised through the London zero carbon homes offset fund need to be ring-fenced by local councils
  • It’s not clear at the moment how much funding will be raised for low carbon projects through the offset funds, but money has already been collected by early adopters of the policy
  • That the zero carbon policy will be extended to non-residential buildings from 2019
  • It’s also not clear how many zero carbon homes will be built by 2020.

The GLA has also approved research work of the various approaches that could be taken by local authorities to direct these offset funds to. The outline of this research project states that:

‘London Plan policy 5.2 sets out that where the target percentage improvements in carbon dioxide emissions beyond Part L of the Building Regulations cannot be met on-site, any short fall should be provided off-site or through cash in lieu contribution to the relevant borough. This is to be ring fenced to secure delivery of carbon dioxide savings elsewhere.

 Existing London Plan policy was prepared in expectation of the establishment of a national zero carbon homes and associated ‘allowable solutions’ framework which the national government is no longer progressing. As such, for the short to medium term it is likely that carbon offset funds established by borough’s will remain the only manner for securing carbon offset funding where development is unable to viably or feasibly meet carbon dioxide emissions reduction targets on-site. As such there is a need to gain a more detailed understanding of the diversity of approaches London boroughs are currently taking to carbon offsetting in order to best inform any future GLA actions in this policy area. This work forms the first stage of the information-gathering and data analysis of this process. “

It’s great to see London leading in this area to ensure that – as the Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee has recently said – we are “building houses that are fit for the future. We have the technology and building techniques to construct houses that generate their own power and hardly need heating. We owe it to future generations to use them.”

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New London Housing SPG Published

April 2016: Somewhat hidden away on the GLA website (as most things are at the moment…) is a new supplementary planning guidance (SPG) on housing, published a few weeks ago. A detailed history on the lengthy consultation process behind this SPG and its relationship to the London Plan and other key GLA documents is helpfully set out at the designingbuildings wiki, which is worth checking.

The SPG includes a series of housing ‘Standards’ which stem from the policies contained in the London Plan’s Climate Change chapter, with the SPG providing further specific guidance on implementing these policies. Standard 35 is of particular importance, as it is concerned with the London’s Plan requirement for zero carbon development: this issue has had a long and complex history – with the SPG’s confirming that new housing development in London will need to be zero carbon from October 2016 is significant – which is covered in further detail in another post here.

The SPG also refers to action to mitigate ‘overheating’ in new homes in Standard 36 (linked to Policy 5.9 of the London Plan) stating that new “housing needs to be designed for the climate it will experience over its life, taking into account predicted climate change, the potential for summer heat waves, London’s urban heat island effect and the limits of thermal comfort of future residents”. 

The GLA’s Preparing Energy Assessments guidance document has also been expanded and updated in line with these changes in the Housing SPG (with a new section 5 entitled ‘Implementation of zero carbon homes (from 1 October 2016)’ added) and is available to download here (or download from this website here).

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Major London housing development to be zero carbon from October 2016

April 2016: As highlighted in an earlier post – the GLA have just issued new London Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) and Energy Planning Guidance which sets out the carbon targets for new residential developments in the capital following the government’s announcement last year to scrap its zero carbon homes policy.

Full detail follows below – but a helpful summary is provided in the GLAs new Energy Assessment Planning Guidance (page 12) on the key takeaway –  new carbon targets:

Stage 1 schemes received by the Mayor up until 30 September 2016 – 35% below Part L 2013 for both residential and commercial development.

Stage 1 schemes received by the Mayor on or after the 1st October 2016 Zero carbon (as defined in section 5.3 of this guidance) for residential development and 35% below Part L 2013 for commercial development

Over the past few months, the Mayor has referred to keeping London’s zero carbon homes policy through a number of responses to Mayoral Questions (see references below). This new Housing SPG is however the first official GLA document which confirms the process for how the zero carbon policy is to be implemented. The full text from the SPG on Zero Carbon Homes follows below – with some accompanying  analysis:

Continue reading…

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Smart City Opportunities for London

March 2016: A new Arup study ‘Smart City Opportunities for London‘ has just been published by the GLA. This report was commissioned to investigate how “London can make the most of the benefits of digital technology by assessing London’s strengths as a smart city and identifying the opportunities for stakeholders in the smart city market.”   

The findings of this report will support the update of the Smart London Plan, the capital’s smart city strategy. It looks at five key industries in detail – energy, water, waste, transport and health. On Smart energy the report states that “London faces energy challenges, including security of supply, ageing infrastructure, fuel poverty, and failure to align retail energy prices with wholesale costs.International and national policies prescribe switching to renewable sources of energy as a way to reduce the use of fossil fuels as well as address climate change and the depletion of resources. The deployment of smart solutions has started to address energy challenges in London, such as trialling smart grid solutions (UK Power Networks) and installing smart meters in homes. There are plenty of opportunities for companies to develop and implement more solutions in renewable energy, smart grid and electric transport. We estimate that the market for smart energy solutions in London could grow to $2.1bn by 2020.”

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Energy & Climate Change Questions to the Mayor

October 2015: This month the Mayor has been asked questions in relation to: the number of London projects awarded funding from government’s Urban Community Energy Fund (UCEF); minutes of the London Plan Energy Advisory Group meetings; helping reduce energy bills for Londoners who have electric heating; GLA loan to Tempus Energy; the impact of the closure of the Green Deal; minimum energy efficiency standards on London’s Private Rented Sector; support for the Governor of the Bank of England’s recent comments on carbon disclosure (and again) ; the FIT consultation and it’s impact on London’s solar industry (and again here); suppliers on the Mayor’s new RE:NEW energy efficiency retrofit framework; London Pension Fund Authority (LPFA) investment in the fossil fuel sector; projected returns from investments made by the London Energy Efficiency Fund (LEEF); planning approval of the Beddington incinerator; a health impact assessment for Beddington incinerator; London Plan requirements for borough planning carbon offset funds; London business risk and financial exposure to a ‘carbon bubble‘; climate sceptic views; Greenwich Power Station update; LED lighting on the Great West Road; production of BioSNG in London; tackling fuel poverty; the rollout of smart meters in London; supporting London businesses resilience to climate change; and an update to the License Lite process.

Previous months questions to the Mayor can be found here.

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London benchmarks for cooling demand in new residential developments

October 2015: The Mayor’s has published a set of “good practice cooling energy demand benchmarks for typical apartment dwelling types, based on reasonable design measures”.

The work was undertaken by AECOM for the GLA and supports the London Plan’s cooling hierarchy as set out in Policy 5.9 of  Chapter 5 of the London Plan (London’s Response to Climate Change) which states the following [page 200 onwards]:

Major development proposals should reduce potential overheating and reliance on air conditioning systems and demonstrate this in accordance with the following cooling hierarchy:

  1. minimise internal heat generation through energy efficient design
  2. reduce the amount of heat entering a building in summer through orientation, shading, albedo, fenestration, insulation and green roofs and walls
  3. manage the heat within the building through exposed internal thermal mass and high ceilings
  4. passive ventilation
  5. mechanical ventilation
  6. active cooling systems (ensuring they are the lowest carbon options).

Two case studies where overheating in London developments has been identified are referenced in the study, including the Seagar Distillery redevelopment in Lewisham, as well as a paper, Forecasting future cooling demand in London, which estimates that the London residential sector could be responsible for an extra 100,000 tonnes CO2 per year by 2030 as a result of cooling.

A number of conclusions and recommendations are made in the study (p60 onwards) including:

  • GLA could produce a checklist for developers to complete with information about glazing ratios, shading methods, ventilation options etc. to help determine whether the development is likely to have overheating problems that should be investigated further. It could be used to identify when detailed modelling is required and could help monitor typical responses to the cooling hierarchy.
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London Riverside decentralised energy plans develop

26 October 2015: Plans for the development of the London Riverside Opportunity Area have been progressing for some years now (see post here). Following a consultation earlier this year, final plans were adopted by the Mayor of London on 23 September 2015 as Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) to the London Plan and published online and launched at a public event at the NLA on 22 October 2015.

London Riverside is one for 4 Opportunity Areas (OA) covering a wide scale development in the East of London comprising London Bridge, Canada Water, Deptford Creek/Greenwich Riverside, Isle of Dogs, Lower Lee Valley, Upper Lee Valley, Ilford, Greenwich Peninsula, Charlton Riverside, Woolwich, London Riverside, Bexley Riverside and Abbey Wood and Thamesmead. The planning frameworks across they areas are at at different stages of development: further information on them can be found here.

The London Riverside OA covers some 2,500 hectares encompassing parts of Barking and Dagenham and Havering, adjoining the borough boundary with Newham in the west, and forms part of the Thames Gateway growth area.

The planning framework has always discussed proposals for an area wide district heating initiative and the revised set of Opportunity Area Planning Framework (OAPF) documents includes a ‘Decentralised Energy‘ chapter which identifies “opportunities for decentralised energy production and the development of a satellite district-heating networks across the OA that interconnect over time to supply locally produced low to zero carbon energy“.

The chapter also captures the significant amount of work going on in relation to decentralised energy across the region: “Havering Council, with the support of the DECC and the GLA has produced an Energy Masterplan focussing on a Rainham and Beam Park district heat network delivering low carbon heat. It also sets out therole of satellite district-heat networks across theopportunity area that could interconnect over timeto supply locally produced low to zero carbon andwaste energy sources. The Rainham and Beam Park Energy Masterplan should be taken into consideration alongside this framework.”

There are number of planned and existing decentralised energy schemes within the London Riverside area (as shown in graphic above) which the planning document considers as part of the area’s energy strategy, .

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