Tag Archives: Merton

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
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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.

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CSE set for return match at Wimbledon

2 February 2012: The Centre for Sustainable Energy are to undertake an energy audit and carbon footprint for the All England Club. More here.

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Mayor overturns Merton refusal to allow development of new AD scheme

October 2011: Following Merton Council’s planning application refusal , the Mayor has today approved waste management firm Sita’s plans for an anaerobic digestion and material recycling facility in Mitcham.  Sita can now build an anaerobic digestion plant handling 40,000t of waste per year, down from the original scheme of 100,000t of waste. It will deliver between 1.1 and 1.7 megawatts of electricity, enough to power the site and export around 8 GWh (gigawatt hours) of electricity per year – equivalent to powering around 2,000 homes –  exporting  around 6.2 GWh of power to the grid per year.
The detailed planning report on the Sita application can be accessed via the Merton’s Planning Application’s Committee meeting of 8 September 2011.  The original energy statement for the development, an updated energy statement responding to queries raised by the GLA, and a district heating study for the immediate area around the anaerobic digestion plan in Merton are all available to download from the Merton’s planning website here [word search for ‘energy’ to quickly locate all three documents].
Some additional useful information is provided in articles at the Wimbledon Guardian and at letsrecycle.com

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Wimbledon Low Carbon Workplace

August 2011: Architects have commenced planning consultation with Merton to create 25,000 sqft of contemporary office in Wimbledon, delivered as part the Low Carbon Workplace partnership. The partnership acquires buildings and updates them to provide modern, financially competitive and energy efficient offices and also works with occupiers, providing support to minimise their carbon emissions and to achieve the Carbon Trust’s Low Carbon Workplace Standard.

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Behaviour Change and Energy use

7 July 2011: The Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insights Team published a report yesterday setting out how behavioural insights can be used to help people save energy and money. The report, Behaviour Change and Energy Use, launches a series of trials and “changes to government policy” (not sure what these are though…) which will make it easier for individuals to green their homes and use less energy. Several of these trials are based in London including:

  • How social networks might be harnessed to support the uptake of domestic energy efficiency measures. In partnership with B&Q and Kingston and Merton councils – a trial will run to test the impact of offering energy efficiency products and services at varying levels of discount depending on how many people opt in to the offer. In this trial, homeowners in Merton will be offered a discount on B&Q energy-efficient products such as loft and cavity wall insulation. People will be incentivised to encourage others in their local community to take up the offer with them –discounts for each household range from 10% fortwo households, to 15% for three households and25% for five households.Merton Council will highlight this through community engagement, also raising awareness about the discounted energy-efficient products by marketing the deal in their own local publications. The trial will be conducted between September and December 2011. To determine the effectiveness of this intervention, Kingston Council will act as a control where householders will be offered standard, non-discounted green products.
  • Testing the impact of helping to remove the ‘hassle factor’, specifically investigating whether minimising the hassle associated with loft clearance will encourage the uptake of loft insulation. B&Q and the London Borough of Sutton are currently discussing the terms of a trial which will test the effectiveness of offering a subsidised loft-clearing service in conjunction with loft insulation.
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Merton

Merton Excess Winter Deaths Report September 2011 and here November 2011
Merton Affordable Warmth Strategy
Climate Change the future is in our hands. – Young people’s edition
Stop climate change in Merton Facebook group
Wandle Valley Low Carbon Zone
Merton Climate Change Strategy – The future is in our hands – March 2009
Merton Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel
Merton Housing Stock Energy Efficiency Report (Fordham Research) – 2005

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