Tag Archives: Islington

Heat and the City – Financing District Heating

June 2012: A one-day workshop was held at the Building Centre in London earlier this year – organised by the ‘Heat and City’ initiative –  bringing together leading municipal energy practitioners (including 21 local authorities and a housing association), UK and Scottish Governments, and a range of commercial industry representatives to discuss strategies for financing district heating initiatives.

Amongst the presentations made at the conference – which are now available download – a number were made in relation to projects going ahead in London including:

Posted in Decentralised Energy, News | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

London Low Carbon Buildings: video case studies

May 2012: Regeneration and construction experts Wilmott Dixon have posted videos on Youtube of two developments that they have been working on in London with a specific brief to reduce energy and carbon emissions. These are:

Retrofit Case Study of a London Victorian Property – a good example of the type of activity that will need to go ahead under the Green Deal in London, with extensive use of IWI (internal wall insulation) resulting in a reduction of 50% in the energy baseline of the dwelling.

Building the zero carbon ‘in use’ Crouch Hill Community Park, Islington – An update on the Crouch Hill Community Park project, developed with Islington Borough Council, which is to be the UK’s first zero carbon ‘in use’ school with a community energy centre that will also provide heat to an adjacent housing estate.

Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Islington: £3m for warming homes, energising business

March 2012: Islington Council news release issued which sets out how the cuoncil has announced how “it will take another 1,000 households out of fuel poverty before 2014 while stimulating the economy creating local jobs and apprenticeships for plumbers, electricians and roofers.
A report to the Council’s executive on 27 March will seek to approve £3m for a universal boiler scheme and insulation works that will reduce bills and put money back in residents’ pockets.
Islington Council will use the investment to attract the maximum benefit from the government’s Green Deal programme towards helping fuel poor households.
The good news comes on the back of a successful year for the council’s energy efficiency action in which over 300 council homes have received ‘A rated’ boilers, 2,300 residents have been helped with energy advice, and the energy doctor has visited over 700 households.
In addition, 1,600 households have received help through the award-winning SHINE service (Seasonal Health Interventions Network) – Islington Council and NHS Islington’s one-stop referral service including benefits checks, Telecare applications and befriending services for the elderly.
Signing off the report Kevin O’Leary, Corporate Director of Islington Council’s Environment Department said: “Taking thousands of poorer households out of fuel poverty is the key to making Islington a fairer place.
“In addition, new jobs and apprenticeships for hundreds in the construction trades are much needed by our young people who have been badly hit by recession.”
In addition to the £3m for boiler replacement, local power schemes in Bunhill and Crouch Hill will be completed in time for winter 2013, bringing cleaner, greener and cheaper energy to 750 homes and businesses in the south and north of the borough.”

Posted in News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Highbury businessman forced to axe staff over solar panel subsidy cut

12 March 2012“An electrician who invested his life savings to set up his dream solar panel business could be left with nothing because of new government policy. Russell Lyne, 31, who lives in Highbury Quadrant, Highbury, spent two years saving and took out a bank loan to raise the £25,000 he needed to set up UK Solar Generation.” Read the full Islington Gazette story here.

Posted in News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Joju Solar

5 March 2012: Profile in the Evening Standard of Islington-based solar company Joju Solar. “one London company — the first in the capital to receive a licence for solar-panel installations, in 2006 — says it is confident of doubling in size this year. Islington-based Joju Solar, run by brothers Joe and Phil Michaels, claims demand for panels is stronger than ever.” Further information on the company at www.jojusolar.co.uk

Posted in News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Solar panels fitted by Islington Council criticised

3 March 2012: “Solar panels fitted to homes have been criticised for potentially harming property values and saving residents less than 1p a year on their electricity.” Read the full Islington Gazette story here.

Posted in News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

London LEAF Winners

7 February 2012: DECC yesterday announced on their Community Energy Online website that 155 community energy projects across the country have won a share of £5.1 million of funding from the Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF). The full list of Local Energy Assessment Fund (2nd Round) projects can be downloaded here. Only scant details of the winning projects are provided in the list however  zooming on London in DECC’s ‘interactive map showing winning community projects‘ provides further information on the 14 winning projects in London. A summary of this information follows below:

  • South Kenton Preston Park Residents Association who will run
    a local home energy assessment of the energy consumption in
    the area. Further information www.skppra.co.uk
  • Community Education Forum who will deliver a community-led energy
    saving programme aimed at the Bangladeshi, Somali and African and African Caribbean communities around Hammersmith and Fulham. Further information www.cefuk.co.uk
  • Sustainable Merton will train community members to carry out
    a community energy efficiency survey and train local champions already engaged in energy reduction to work on implementation. Further information at: www.sustainablemerton.org
  • EcoLocal based in Merton will work to create a mobile home energy
    efficiency demonstration with models of wall insulation, and many other home energy saving devices, to go to engagement events as means of communicating the Green Deal to householders. Further information at: www.thecei.org.uk
  • Zero Carbon Hackbridge in Sutton will set up an energy saving network with local community groups. Volunteers will be trained to enable them to spread the word about energy saving to their friends and neighbours and offer free appointments with an Energy Doctor. Further information here.
  • Hyde Farm Climate Action Network near Tooting will conduct a feasibility study for retrofit community heating and CHP into the neighbourhood. Further information at: here.
  • Brixton Energy Co-op will develop the Brixton Energy Solar 1, a flagship community investment project in the Loughborough Estate in Brixton, deploying an 80kw photovoltaic array on the roofs of the estate. They will also conduct feasibility studies, engage with the community and lay the groundwork for the further renewable energy cooperatives across South London. Further information at: www.transitiontownbrixton.org
  • Transition Peckham’s,Repair, Re-build, Renew, will deliver solid wall demonstration projects to five households, targeting those at risk of being in fuel poverty. Further information at here
  • Shrinking the Footprint is the Church of England’s national environment campaign. They will run the project in three Dioceses around Southwark where no work has yet been done using the sMeasure and iMeasure on-line energy management software tools developed at the University of Oxford. Further information at: www.shrinkingthefootprint.org
  • Waterloo Community Development Group will develop a youth-led programme to empower trained home energy assessors to lead on efficiency and sustainable retrofit, including the Green Deal and ECO, through an awareness and engagement programme in Waterloo. Further information at: www.wcdg.org.uk
  • Camden and Westminster Refugee Training Partnership (CandWRTP) will work with refugees, asylum seekers, BME individuals especially women and organisations to identify and collect data on current energy saving measures and behaviour through a survey and a public consultation event. Further information at: here.
  • Local Space Housing (LSH), based in Islington, will aim to develop a 2 year tenant-led energy efficiency strategy for the association.
  • The Sustainable Home Survey Company C.I.C. aims to create three Green Deal Ready community groups Further information here.
  • The London Borough of Tower Hamlets will work on resident engagement and discuss setting up an Energy Co-Op. This will lead on to a feasibility survey for such a Energy Co-Op and creation of a working group to take it forward.
  • Poplar HARCA and Tower Hamlets manage c.10,000 homes in Poplar. They will purchase home energy management systems to link energy data for analysis.  Further information: www.poplarharca.co.uk
  • St. John on Bethnal Green will undertake energy surveys here and in other local faith buildings as well as domestic properties and prepare a report on findings. Further information at: www.faithintowerhamlets.com
  • Hackney Co-operative Developments CIC will provide external wall and roof insulation to a large managed workspace building used by charities, social enterprises, co-operatives, cultural entrepreneurs and locally-owned start-ups. Further information at: www.hced.co.uk
  • The Arcola Theatre Dalston Energy Angels project will work in Hackney to create a network of members with different needs, skills and offers who can support each other to create and service demand in for energy efficiency and renewable energy. They will use the Theatre to educate people about electricity consumption and create a Waste Wood Heating Network to run a wood-fired boiler. Further information here.
  • The HEET Project works with older and vulnerable people across the
    borough of Waltham Forest in north east London. They research, develop and pilot innovative ways to achieve higher energy savings for fuel poor households. Further information at: www.theheetproject.org.uk
Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Evaluating RE:CONNECT

February 2012: Paper presented at the most recent GLA Investment and Performance Board evaluating the progress of the Mayor’s RE:CONNECT programme which established 10 ‘Low Carbon Zones’ across London.

The ten zones are in: Barking Town Centre (LBBD), Muswell Hill (Haringey),Archway (Islington), Brixton (Lambeth), Lewisham Town Centre (Lewisham), WandleValley (Merton), Ham & Petersham (Richmond), Peckham (Southwark), Hackbridge(Sutton), Queens Park (Westminster). The largest zone is in Archway with around 3,000 buildings; the smallest is in Hackbridge with around 300 buildings.

The programme is essentially a series of local scale demonstration projects that seek to deliver a 20% CO2 saving across the buildingsin a neighbourhood over a three year period (September 2009 – September 2012) and to provide an understanding of the factors that are required to deliver high coverage of energy efficiency measures and more efficient energy usage at a local scale.

Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Three schemes bid to generate heat and power from North London’s waste

October 2011: Three bids have been submitted to the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) to generate energy from the 300,000 tonnes of solid recovered fuel (SRF)  created from the 500,000 to 600,000 tonnes of North London’s waste that cannot be recycled  or composted.
The NWLA is a statutory waste authority managing the disposal of municipal waste from seven London local authorities (Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Islington, Hackney, Haringey and Waltham Forest) and this procurement is one of two that NLWA is running to provide a “long term and sustainable waste management solution for North London”.  A separate procurement is being run that will involve recycling or composting half of North London’s waste, producing the fuel and minimising the landfilling of municipal waste.
The contract for the use of SRF will be available from 2015 for up to 25 years and the NLWA states that it “is striving to achieve the most efficient form of energy recovery. This could be with the fuel being used in a Combined Heat and Power (‘CHP’) plant, located close to where the energy demand is.”
The NWLA have provided updated details of the three bids, all of which utilise CHP technology  on the following news release.

  • Covanta Energy project is the only one based in London and is proposing a Combined Heat and Power plant at the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery site at Silvertown, East London. The Covanta proposal involves the transport by barge of SRF from Edmonton to Silvertown and this will support the further development of London rivers for freight transport use. Covanta will shortly begin consultations with the local community and relevant authorities ahead of a planning application in mid 2012.
  • E.ON/Wheelabrator Technologies is proposing a CHP plant at DS Smith Paper’s site at Kemsley Mill, Sittingbourne, Kent.
  • Veolia Environmental Services (UK) wants a CHP enabled power plant at an existing industrial site in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

The winning proposal will be selected from one of the three shortlisted candidates during the next 12 months using an evaluation framework that focuses on the quality and cost of the solution.
Further information on how SRF is produced is set out by the NWLA here.

Posted in Decentralised Energy, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

London’s first council owned energy company

8 October 2011:  The Islington Gazette reports that “The Bunhill Energy Centre, in Central Street, Clerkenwell, is due to be ready for the start of winter next year and will provide cheaper energy for more than 700 homes in the south of the borough.” Read full article here.

Posted in Decentralised Energy, News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Islington council warns of deaths over fuel policy

7 October 2011: More people could die this winter in Islington as a direct result of government fuel policy, the town hall’s energy chief said in a stark warning this week. Also mentioned were the Islington’s plans for London’s first council-owned energy company, which will be set up in Central Street, Clerkenwell. Read full article in the Islington Gazette here.

Posted in News | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Islington Fuel Poverty Update

6 October 2011: Islington Council paper providing an update on initiatives being undertaken in the borough to help combat fuel poverty.

Posted in News | Tagged , | Leave a comment