Tag Archives: Hillingdon

DSR project in Hillingdon

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Admin

March 2016: EDIE reports that “Building materials supplier Hanson UK is pioneering a demand-side response approach to energy management, with the technology being rolled out to 29 of the company’s quarries across the country” including Hanson’s West Drayton Asphalt Plant in the London Borough of Hillingdon.

“The London-based firm, which employs around 3,500 people, has partnered with demand-response aggregator Open Energi to install the ‘Dynamic Demand’ system at 14 of its sites, with another 15 installations planned through a phased rollout.

“Using the demand side response technology, tanks and pumps used to dewater Hanson’s quarries will be able to reduce their energy consumption when UK energy demand exceeds supply, and increase consumption when supply exceeds demand.”

Further information can be read on Open Energi’s website.

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London Energy Efficiency Programme Scrutinised

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Admin

March 2014: The London Assembly Environment Committee held the first of two oral evidence sessions on progress made by the GLA’s energy and climate programmes. The first of these sessions was held on 6 February and focussed on the Mayor’s home energy efficiency programme, RE:NEW. Evidence was provided by representatives from a number of organisations, including EDF Energy, the Energy Saving Trust, Hillingdon Borough Council and the Mayor’s Housing Advisor. The full transcript can be accessed here – and a webcast can also be viewed here. Points of interest raised during the debate included:

  • The RE:NEW programme is awaiting confirmation they they have been successful in their application to the European Investment Bank’s European Local Energy Assistance (ELENA) programme for £2.6m to put in place a support team over a three year period starting from April 2014 (the RE:NEW programme support team is currently operated for the GLA by Capita).
  • RE:NEW is  currently working with Greenwich, Havering, Newham and Westminster, Hyde Housing and Peabody Gallions developing “bigger projects that would be more attractive in terms of bringing in Energy Company Obligation (ECO) funding“.
  • Borough responses suggested that RE:NEW was “not very hands-on with project development.” RE:NEW is keen to find out what boroughs are doing but “there is very little support there for boroughs in terms of developing projects and overcoming planning issues.“
  • RE:NEW should be instead be focussing on what the GLA could do to “enhance [borough activities] even further if it wants to deliver ambitious carbon reduction targets“
  • Further criticism was targeted at the RE:NEW programme stating that the funding resource was mainly going to Capita : “We see that the resources are actually on those people, basically, for the Capita resource. Local authorities are not really getting the benefit of that on the whole“.
  • An often confusing debate takes place on  how many homes were retrofitted through the RE:NEW programme and how many homes were insulated across London in total. A number of 400,000 homes is quoted by the Mayor’s Housing Advisor during the session. Though not explained, this number is most likely made up of the following: 327,00 treated through the Government’s CERT programme over the period April 2008 – December 2012 (see cell V35 of EST CERT data here), and 70,000 homes visited by the RE:NEW team and provided with ‘easy measures’ over the period July 2011-December 2012 (see MQ here for details). For more on this, see earlier post here.
  • RE:NEW Phase 3 has a target of retrofitting 175,000 homes.

Just ahead of the evidence session – somewhat belatedly – the Mayor published the full evaluation report of the main RE:NEW roll-out phase which ran from July 2011-May 2012 (a summary report had previously been issued – details here).  A second oral evidence session will take place on 26 March, focusing on the Mayor’s decentralised energy programmes, with the Mayor’s energy advisor, Matthew Pencharz, in attendance.

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London’s Electricity Infrastructure

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Admin

July 2013: A recent meeting of the London Infrastructure Group, part of the London Enterprise Panel (the local enterprise partnership for London) included a paper considering requirements for London’s growing electricity infrastructure.

The paper highlights that “UK Power Networks (UKPN) is London’s main Distribution Network Operator (DNO) for electricity serving all except the London boroughs of Hillingdon, Hounslow and Ealing. Scottish and Southern Energy serve these boroughs. As DNO UKPN’s responsibility extends from the Grid Supply Points where it takes electricity at high voltages from National Grid to the supply of London’s homes and businesses.”

UKPN is currently consulting on its 2015 – 2023 Business Plan which is to be submitted to Ofgem.  Much of the detail around UKPN’s proposals in the Plan have been discussed in recent meetings of the Mayor’s High Level Electricity Working Group and an appendix paper to the London Infrastructure Group meeting considers some key elements of the Plan.

The papers report that the Mayor has raised concerns regarding future investment in London’s electricity distribution infrastructure and that UKPN latest proposals “represent a step backwards regarding the prospects of UKPN investing in advance of need. It gives rise to concern about whether UKPN has taken sufficiently full account of the needs of the City of London and other central London boroughs facing business and development growth. The reason for the backward step is mainly attributable to the intervention of Ofgem” (some of these concerns on future needs were recently raised by businesses in the recent West End Commission report).

Investment in major substations has been reduced from £170 million to £100 million compared to the original draft. UKPN now includes only four of the planned six (plus Earls Court1) major substations for central London on a funded basis (see Table 1 below for details). The origin of the change is principally Ofgem’s unwillingness to accept the remaining three substations as part of UKPN’s regulated asset base, since they would amount to investment by UKPN in advance of an actual connection being requested.

Interesting to note that other changes have been made to UKPN’s forecasts of sustainable energy investment in response to comments to the original consultation. These include changes to the assumptions regarding the uptake of electric vehicles and to the infrastructure investment for Feed–in–Tariff eligible generation.

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£11m awarded to London energy programmes

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Admin

January 2013: Responding to a competition launched last October, DECC have just announced that 132 projects have won a share of £46 million of funding. The three strands of the funds were  “to help reduce fuel poverty, boost energy efficiency, and encourage collective switching and purchasing in regions across Great Britain.” The full press release is here and boroughs successful (and amounts awarded) can be downloaded here, and shows London did well with a total of £11m worth of projects selected. These were:

Fuel Poverty

  • Barnet (£107,500)
  • Waltham Forest (£97,000)
  • Tower Hamlets (£2,254,000)
  • Camden (£407,500)
  • Brent (£102,000)
  • Hillingdon (£106,500)
  • Hounslow (£706,000)
  • GLA together with 18 London boroughs (£5,360,421)

Green Deal Pioneer Places

  • Brent (£153,000)
  • Camden (£120,180)
  • Hounslow (£262,000)
  • Haringey (£275,200)
  • GLA together with 18 London boroughts (£266,921)

Cheaper Energy Together Funding

  • Tower Hamlets (£37,351)
  • Kingston upon Thames with 16 London boroughs (£686,655)

Little information is available at the moment on what exactly these various schemes will do in their respective areas, however, some  guidance released when the competition was launched provides details of what this funding is supposed to be delivering.

London Councils reports that the last of the collective energy purchasing schemes, where Kingston Council is the lead borough, will help “Vulnerable residents in up to 1.75 million homes across London will be offered assistance by their local council to get a better energy deal and save money.” DECC’s Secretary of State, Ed Davey, is hugely supportive of such collective purchasing deals (see here and here), and promoted such programmes in his former role at the Department of Business (BIS). He’s also the MP for Kingston and Surbiton, so it’s not surprising that his local council undertook a strong role in this competition.

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25 heat network projects being supported in London

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Admin

November 2012: A recent speech by Ed Davey, Secretary of State at DECC on the department’s emerging policy around heat energy highlighted how the efficient use of heat is being promoted in the capital through its promotion of district heating. Mr Davey stated:

“London contains an example of the potential. The Greater London Authority is supporting 25 heat network projects. These have the capacity to leverage over £230 million of investment.”

A recent Mayoral question provides a little more detail on where these schemes are:

“The Decentralised Energy Project Delivery Unit is currently supporting the development of 25 decentralised projects. The following lists the activities with the boroughs:
Projects at procurement: Brent and Camden;
• Projects at post-feasibility: Croydon, Enfield, Haringey, Waltham Forest and Westminster;
• Projects at feasibility: Southwark, Islington, Hammersmith and Fulham, Newham, Sutton;
• Projects at pre-feasibility/energy master planning: Hillingdon, Ealing, and Westminster.”

Further information on Brent’s South Kilburn DE project can be found here.
Details of the innovative scheme being supported by Camden in Gospel Oak can be found here (and recent October newsletter here), which is using heat from a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant situated in the Royal Free Hospital, to provide low carbon affordable heat to nearby residents.
Other information can be found in the various borough heat map reports posted on www.londonheatmap.org.uk

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Sky prepares big switchover to biomass power

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Admin

January 2012: Business Green report on Sky’s new headquarter’s based near Heathrow where the installation of a new “combined cooling heat and power (CCHP) plant that could supply up to 40 per cent of energy to the broadcaster’s main studio complex…At full capacity, the plant will take delivery of 32 tonnes of wood chips a day, sourced from local businesses in a 25-mile radius.” Read the full news story here.
Further information is available at Sky’s Environment Review 2011 report.

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Decentralised Energy project in West Drayton

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Admin

13 November 2011: A new development in West Drayton of 89 two, three, four and five bedroom houses will have heat supplied from a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit based in an onsite energy centre, currently under construction.  Each home will contain a Heat Interface Unit (HIU) to control heating and hot water, providing substantial benefits to residents in helping to reduce their energy bills and carbon footprint. Read further detail here.
When finalised the heat network, developed by E.ON,  will eventually stretch across 773 homes, an 80-bed care home, a medical centre and four retail units.

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RE:NEW to roll out across nine more London boroughs

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Admin

27 September 2011: The Mayor has announced today that homes in specific areas in Wandsworth, Croydon, Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Hounslow are the next to benefit from the RE:NEW energy efficiency programme.  To find out if you are in an area which is getting the RE:NEW treatment go to the postcode search facility here.

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Green Doctor service in Hillingdon

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Admin

September 2011: As part of the London-wide RE:NEW scheme, Green Doctors™ from Groundwork Thames Valley will be visiting 1,600 homes across Hillingdon to advise residents on how they can be more efficient with energy. A survey of the property will be carried to find out what energy saving devices can be installed which can help save households up to £160. Further information from Hillingdon here.
Further information on the Green Doctor programme is available in a recent progress report for the Ebico Trust.

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Hillingdon

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Admin

Hillingdon Climate Change Strategy April 2009

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HEEP – 10 easy measures technical trial

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Admin

October 2009:  Report on the technical trial of the ’10 easy efficiency measures’ project, which forms part of the Mayor’s Home Energy Efficiency Programme (HEEP), delivered by West London Housing Partnership and Hillingdon Council.

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