Tag Archives: Southwark

“…world’s largest solar bridge”

May 2012: The Guardian reports on “London’s new Blackfriars station, spanning the river Thames, will be the world’s largest solar bridge when it opens in time for the Olympics in June 2012.” Further information on the project here.

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London’s largest solar array

20 February 2012:

After a three year refurbishment, Blackfriars station has re-opened. As part of the station’s refit, Network Rail has installed 4,400 solar panels on the roof of Blackfriars station. Accounting for 50% of the station’s energy needs, they will form London’s largest solar array. Further information here and here.

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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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Energy Efficient Breakfast Events

January 2012: The Carbon Trust is hosting an Energy Efficient Breakfast for local businesses in the London Boroughs of  Camden, Westminster, Southwark and Lambeth, in partnership with Camden Council on 27 March 2012. Registration and breakfast will open at 7:30 am, the session will start at 8 am, and will finish at 10:00 am with an optional carbon surgery with the trainer for half an hour afterwards. Further details on  the content of the event and how to register posted on the Carbon Trust’s website.

A further event in Sutton is also being held on 6 March 2012.

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Southwark District Heating project moves forward

January 2012LetsRecycle news reports on progress made by Southwark Council to develop new district heating infrastructure taking heat from Veolia’s energy from waste plant, SELCHP, to provide low carbon, affordable heat to 3,000 homes across seven  estates in Southwark.  Southwark will not be required to make any up-front financial contribution to the project but would instead sign a long-term contract to buy the heat at a guaranteed lower price than can be secured from the conventional energy market. Further details are provided in the following Southwark news release and some earlier posts provide some further background.

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Five London Community Energy projects awarded Government funding

16 January 2012: DECC today announced the first 82 local energy projects to win funding from the new £10m Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF).  Five projects in London were selected:

Congratulations all!

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Surrey Canal Decentralised Energy Project

December 2011: An article on the Guardian’s website includes some information a major new mixed development (shops, business space, 2,400 homes and a new ‘Sporting Village’ based around Millwall Football Club) planned for Lewisham – Surrey Canal – which is planned to form part of a district heating scheme using waste heat from the nearby SELCHP waste to energy plant.

A proposed heat network route from SELCHP is also being examined by neighbouring borough Southwark, to supply heat to a number of nearby estates (details previously posted here and here): the power station is currently wasting enough waste heat to supply both these routes and more development sites should they come along.

More information on the energy strategy for the Surrey Canal development can be found in the following energy assessment for the site submitted as part of the planning application. (Direct link above – the full planning application can be viewed here – the energy assessment is saved under ‘Supporting Reports Vol.1’).

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London smart meter trial launched

18 November 2011: As part of the ‘Low Carbon London’ project, 5,000 smart meters are to be installed in homes and businesses across London.  EDF Energy customers in the pilot zones, Lewisham, Perry Vale, Canning Town, Archway, Barking, Muswell Hill and Peckham, are being offered the first 500 smart meters, extending to EDF Energy customers in the ten low carbon zones and the Green Enterprise District later next year. Read full details on the following press release from London’s electricity distribution network operator, UK Power Networks.

Further information on the ‘Low Carbon London’ project – which is funded through Ofgem’s Low Carbon Network Fund – can be seen here and here.

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Blackfriars station to install the largest PV array in London

4 October 2011: Work is due to start to install more than 4,400 solar panels – more than 6,000 square metres of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels –  into the new roof of Blackfriars station in central London. The scheme will create the biggest solar array in London, and make the new station the world’s largest solar bridge. Further detail in an article in The Guardian and from developer Solar Century here.

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London schemes through to the next round of ‘energyshare’

12 August 2011: British Gas and River Cottage’s energyshare initiative have today announced the ‘longlist’ of 100 community renewable energy projects bidding for support from the initial £500,000 energyshare fund. Only seven London schemes are in this list of 100 projects and links to their project descriptions can be found below:

Ham Hydro – the installation of hydro power turbines on the River Thames at Teddington Weir
PETRA – green refurbishment of tower blocks to best practice standards of energy and water efficiency and generate renewable energy
SPACE_Solar – the installation of a large solar array on a new artist studio building in Peckham
All Souls Solar – installation of a solar array on All Souls Church in St Margarets, Isleworth
Glyndon Community – a scheme to make part of Plumstead-based Glyndon community centre’s energy consumpution come from renewable sources
Hackney City Farm
Hyde Farm Climate Action Network – Supporting ongoing energy saving projects on the Hyde Farm estate in Balham.

Further funding of £2m will be supplied for future bidding rounds by British Gas – much more information on energyshare can be found on their website.

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London’s Power Stations

30 June 2011: DECC’s annual Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) has just been published providing a welcome summer reading challenge for all energy-geeks… DUKES is principally concerned with national level energy statistics, and hence does not provide regional breakdowns in most instances (those are usually set out in separate articles in DECC’s quarterly journal Energy Trends). However, there a few issues areas worth looking at. In the first instance, it’s useful to be aware of what power plants operate within London itself, which in total contribute only a small percentage of London’s total electricity demand. The following London schemes are listed in the ‘Power Stations in the UK’ table in Chapter 5 of DUKES, to which some additional information/links have been added to below:

  • Barking Power – a gas fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) of 1000 MW (megawatts) generation capacity, which first started operating in 1994
  • Citigen (London) UK Ltd  – based in Charterhouse Street in Smithfields and owned and operated by E.ON, this scheme is fuelled by  gas and gas oil, and is rated 31 MW and first started operating in 1995. The unit operates in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) mode providing heating, and also cooling (via chilled water) distributed by a district energy network to a number of customers in the City area.
  • Thames Valley Power – a joint venture between EDF Energy and ATCO Power, this  Gas/Gas oil 15MW CHP has been operating since 1995 at Heathrow Airport.
  • London Heat & Power Company –  a 9MW gas CHP based at Imperial College which started operation in 2009.
  • Barkantine Heat & Power Company – A 1MW gas fuelled CHP with district heating system based on the Barkantine Estate in Tower Hamlets
  • Taylors Lane – Taylor’s Lane Open Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT) station, situated in Willesden is operated by E.ON and has two gas turbine units fired on natural gas with a total capacity of 132MW and began generating in 1979.
  • Enfield Power Station– E.ON owned and operated 400MW gas turbine scheme which began generating in 1999.
  • SELCHP – South East London Combined Heat & Power Ltd (SELCHP) 32 MW waste fired operated by Veolia Environmental Services began generating in 1994 – but only in power-only mode. Heat offtake opportunities (so the plant can finally operate in true-CHP mode) are currently being explored with Southwark Council.
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