Tag Archives: Tower Hamlets

London Councils’ Climate Change Strategy

Posted on January 17, 2021 by Admin

January 2021: Ahead of a 19 January London Councils’ Executive meeting, a useful briefing paper has been prepared for the committee highlighting work undertaken by the organisation since the November 2019 Joint Statement on Climate Change with those London boroughs who have signed a Climate Emergency declaration . Seven work areas have been identified, with lead local authorities appointed to take these initiatives forward:

  • #1 Retrofit London: Retrofit all domestic and non-domestic buildings to an average level of EPC B. Lead borough: LB Enfield and LB Waltham Forest
  • #2 Low-carbon development: Secure low carbon buildings and infrastructure via borough planning. Lead borough: LB Hackney and LB Tower Hamlets
  • #3 Halve petrol and diesel road journeys: Halve road journeys made by petrol and diesel via combined measures that can restrict polluting journeys and incentivise sustainable and active travel options. Lead borough: RB Kingston
  • #4 Renewable power for London: Secure 100% renewable energy for London’s public sector now and in the future. Lead borough: LB Islington
  • #5 Reduce consumption emissions: Reduce consumption emissions by two thirds, focusing on food, clothing, electronics and aviation. Lead borough: LB Harrow
  • #6 Build the green economy: Develop London’s low carbon sector and green our broader economy. Lead borough: LB Hounslow
  • #7 Creating a resilient and green London. Lead borough: LB Southwark

The paper sets out some a useful Indicative Timetable of Events and Milestones for London Councils over the coming months and up to COP26. Further detailed information on the full extent of the work undertaken to date through the joint declaration is available on the London Councils Climate Change page.

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Tower Hamlets School LED project

Posted on August 21, 2020 by Admin

21 August 2020: “Osmani Primary School in East London is set to realise a £7,700 saving on its annual energy bill thanks to making the switch to LED lighting“. Good to see this article in Electrical Review highlighting the work of Tower Hamlets council, using resource from the borough’s carbon offset fund: “The London Borough of Tower Hamlets supports schools in the borough to improve their energy efficiency and reduce their carbon emissions through its Carbon Offset Fund. This funding source provides the upfront capital for LED replacement projects, thereby allowing the school to repay the cost through the energy savings realised during the payback period.” Read the full article here.

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Carbon offset fund pays for school LED upgrade

Posted on August 13, 2019 by Admin

12 August 2019: “A LONDON primary school is on track to significantly reduce its annual energy use following an upgrade to LED lighting financed by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ Carbon Offset Fund.” A great case study at Luxreview of an energy efficient lighting retrofit project undertaken at Lansbury Lawrence Primary School in the Poplar. Further background on how the borough’s carbon offset operates can be seen here.

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Tower Hamlets Schools LED project

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Admin

6 August 2019: “Lansbury Lawrence Primary School is on track to significantly reduce its annual energy use following an upgrade to LED lighting financed by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ Carbon Offset Fund.” Full profile of project can be viewed here.

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RE:NEW retrofit case studies

Posted on August 5, 2016 by Admin

August 2016: The GLA’s home energy efficiency retrofit programme, RE:NEW, has posted a series of case studies on their website. These include a range of projects including:

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The UK’s first solar bus shelter opens in Canary Wharf

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Admin

11 April 2016: “The UK’s first solar power generating bus stop has been opened in Canary Wharf. Designed by Polysolar Ltd it is made with transparent photovoltaic glazing, which captures the sun’s rays even in low light. It was unveiled on Friday, April 8, outside the HSBC building in Canada Square by London Mayoral candidate Sian Berry.” Read the full story in The Wharf  – with more on this story at Gizmag.

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Tower Hamlets insulates

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Admin

25 December 2014: Hackney Gazette story on abseiling engineers providing insulation to a number of tower blocks in Tower Hamlets. Energy supplier EDF Energy is funding the work as part of their Energy Company Obligation (ECO) targets.

EDF state that this is one of the largest ECO projects they have worked on with a London borough with some 500 homes included in the scheme on the Bancroft, Avebury, St Stephen’s and Chicksand estates. Work is expected to be complete by March, 2016.

Tower Hamlets has set out its ambition to access ECO funding in its recent 2014/15 Sustainability Action Plan. This work has been planned for sometime now – details of which are set out in a 2013 approval paper from Tower Hamlets council here. Delays have been most likely been caused through the Government’s changes to the ECO programme which the Prime Minister ordered in December 2013 (to which many concerns were raised by practioners to a DECC blog on the ECO changes earlier this year (search for words ‘Brent’ and ‘London’ in blog)).

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Energy People and Society presentations

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Admin

24 June 2014: A series of interesting papers presented at the first UCL symposium on energy, people and society include a number of case studies focused in London, which include:

  • District Heating in Pimlico: Analysing the social contract created through energy infrastructure available here.
  • Capturing the Social Value of Retrofit at Scale (a case study in Poplar) available here
  • Heritage and Environmental Values in Sustaining Heritage Domestic Buildings: A Residents’ Perspective (case study in Walthamstow) available here
  • Greenroofs and Sustainability: Energy, Performance, Time (case studies across London) available here
  • Urban Energy Landscapes available here
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London’s first Passivhaus School

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Admin

March 2014: News that a £5m contract has been awarded “by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for the refurbishment of Stebon Primary School. The school will be the first Passivhaus School in London and only the sixth in the UK to be delivered under the highly sustainable Passivhaus standards, which are more traditionally used in house building.”

A submission to Tower Hamlets council as part of the planning application sets out some detail of how the refurb will seek to achieve a passivhaus standard:

  • The sustainability and energy strategy have informed the building design. Passive design strategies have been adopted and include good orientation, compact building form, low U values, high air tightness, thermal mass, maximizing natural daylight internally, and solar control to southerly facades.
  • Passivhaus utilises passive solar gain and night time purge ventilation in summer, coupled with heat recovery and rigorous thermal and airtightness requirements to greatly reduce energy consumption.

The report goes on to say to “achieve Passivhaus certification requires:

  • Considered form and orientation – typically compact and east-west orientation making Stebon a good contender
  • High levels of insulation
  • Elimination of thermal bridges
  • Air tightness
  • Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR)
  • Winter solar gains
  • Summer natural ventilation with night-time cooling”

An energy statement for the development provides further detail.

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London bottom of solar league table

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Admin

June 2013: Analysis by consultancy WSP in their report – ‘Solar Success: Space Not Cash the Key for Solar’ reflects previous posts by Energy for London (see here and here), highlighting London’s poor progress when compared to other regions in relation to the installation of solar photovoltaic systems.

The conclusions summarise the Feed in Tariff Installation report data, produced by energy regulator Ofgem, highlighting local authority installations per 10,000 households.

The analysis shows that London boroughs make up 23 of the 25 lowest ranking local authorities for solar installations and the entire bottom 10 in the national league table. Westminster, Tower Hamlets, the City of London, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Southwark are all found in the bottom five.

The report points out that: “Even The Orkneys at 232/10,000 houses comes 55th out of 760 on installation rates – higher than every local authority in Surrey, Kent and London – areas which receive much more sun than Scotland. To get most bang for buck, incentives should encourage the sunniest areas to get more panels than the furthest north. This, however, isn’t the case – the reality of politics over good green policies.”

Reasons for London’s limited success with PV  put forward include: “While we might think that cities should be happy hunting grounds for solar sales, in reality houses in towns are smaller, their roofs are more likely to be obscured and there’s also less owner occupation.”

Link to report here and directly downloadable here.

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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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Retrofit for the Future – London projects

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Admin

September 2012: The Retrofit for the Future programme’s Low Energy Buildings database website has recently been updated. The database is a repository of low-energy building information created to help inform the planning and development of low energy new build and refurbishment. The website allows users to browse projects in the database, and create and edit projects if you have a log-in.

A projects map highlights schemes funded across the UK and direct links to the 11 London based retrofit schemes follow below.

Eco Hub at Lordship Recreation Ground, Haringey
Hawthorn Road – Metropolitan Housing Trust, Haringey
Focus House
The Muse – Islington
Mayville Community Centre
Tower Hamlets Passivhaus Retrofit
Camden Passivhaus – London’s first certified Passivhaus
PassivHaus Retrofit – Princedale Road
Lena Gardens
Hounslow Passivhaus Retrofit – Grove Road
One Planet Sutton Retrofit

Further information on the ‘Retrofit for the Future’ programme and evaluation of the projects submitted can be viewed here.

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