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Renewable Heat
Taking Action

Sunderland goes for Ground Source Heat Pumps

20 November 2019

Residents in 364 homes across seven tower blocks in Sunderland are seeing their gas boilers replaced with heat from ground source heat pumps. There will be a ground source heat pump for each flat which will also be connected to a district heating system consisting of ambient shared ground loop arrays. An underground aquifer will provide the heat source for the tower blocks, accessed via open loop boreholes drilled to depths of 60m. The ambient system prevents heat losses, overcoming overheating in the tower block communal areas, and boosts the system efficiency. The independent heat pumps mean that tenants can shop around for their electricity deal, whilst reducing carbon emissions by an estimated 420 tonnes or nearly 70% per year and improving local air quality. Gentoo Group is delivering the ‘Core 364’ project with the support of Engie and ground source heat pump specialists, Kensa Contracting. Work started in October, with all systems expected to be replaced by late Summer 2020.

Gentoo’s chief executive officer, Nigel Wilson, said: “This heating system will provide heat and hot water at a much reduced cost, using natural heat from the ground.

For more info see the presentati0on made by Kensa to the APSE Energy Summit in October https://www.apse.org.uk/apse/assets/File/Day%202%20-%20Session%205_2%20-%20Matthew%20Black.pdf

New Power »

Renewable Heat

Geothermal Energy

18 August 2019

Advocates claim enough geothermal energy in abandoned coal mines to heat 180m homes. The weed-lined disused road beside Lanchester Wines’ ageing warehouse on a north-east England industrial estate could not be more low key. But beneath the roadway’s many manhole covers are shafts which descend 200m into what could be the UK’s most widespread unused energy source – minewater. Lanchester Wines’ facility in Gateshead has by far the UK’s biggest commercial minewater heating scheme. It supplies all the warehouse’s needs, keeping millions of bottles of wine temperate, and also heats a neighbouring distribution depot. Advocates of using minewater for heating regard it as having particularly significant potential after the UK set the ambitious goal earlier this year of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. A quarter of all UK homes and businesses, some 9m buildings, and most of its largest cities outside London sit on former coalfields. Coal mining, which employed 1.25m people at its peak, powered the British economy for well over a century but the last deep mine closed in 2015. One of its underground legacies is the warrens of galleries through which run an estimated 2bn cubic metres of water, heated by surrounding rocks to 12-16 degrees Celsius. At present, minewater is a problem. Often high in iron and pollutants and potentially a threat to drinking water and rivers, its management by the publicly funded Coal Authority cost £18m last year. Yet Lisa Pinney, the authority’s chief executive, said minewater “could be a real contribution to zero carbon”. Opportunities she cited included horticulture, new housing and leisure schemes. According to Coal Authority data, heating currently accounts for 45 per cent of the country’s energy use and 32 per cent of its emissions. Meeting the government’s net zero carbon emissions target will require slashing fossil fuel use. Three extraction shafts outside the warehouse raise 39 litres of minewater a second to the surface using an open loop water source heat pump system. The minewater travels by pipe around the plant room into a heat exchanger. Here, the minewater heat boils liquid ammonia, concentrating the ammonia’s heat at 50 degrees C. This heat is then used to warm water which circulates around the factory’s heating system. Meanwhile the minewater, above ground for only two minutes, is sent back underground to warm up again. Now the 60-year-old Gateshead warehouse has a 2.4MW system yielding 6KW of heat for each kilowatt of electricity used. Its installation has brought the company its first payment, of £117,000 payment, under the government’s renewable heat incentive scheme. The company’s other nearby warehouse, which has hit an even better minewater supply yielding 67 litres a second, will within weeks start operating its own heating scheme. Mr Black expects payback on the £3.5m investment, part of £8m spent on renewable energy to make the company carbon neutral, within seven years. In Bridgend, in south Wales, the local authority is working with scientists to develop a minewater heating network for a local community. And in Durham the county council has invited tenders for heating a leisure centre swimming pool using minewater. Mike Stephenson, the BGS’s chief scientist, said the Glasgow studies were focusing on “de-risking” minewater heat use and that the research should be sufficiently advanced to enable investment decisions in two years.  “The wonderful irony here is we used coal to carbonise the economy,” he said. “Now we are going to use the coal mines that exist to decarbonise.”

Financial Times »

Renewable Heat

Waste Heat

8 August 2019

Engineers in Stirling are getting ready to open the UK’s first low-carbon energy hub which uses waste water. Scottish Water aims to heat several public buildings, including a school, a leisure centre and a stadium, through a mixture of cutting-edge technologies, including heat pumps, at its sewage works at Forthside. Their £6 million scheme, which has financial backing from Stirling Council and the Scottish Government, was visited by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon yesterday ahead of its switch-on next month. The new energy hub consists of a conventional natural gas combined heat and power (CHP) engine, heat from a waste water heat pump system, thermal stores and back-up gas boilers for the district heating network. The CHP engine generates heat for the public buildings and electricity for the sewage plant and the waste water heat pumps. The heat from waste water technology, provided by SHARC Energy Systems, uses a heat recovery unit to separate liquid and solid waste, which is returned to the treatment process. A heat exchanger transfers the heat from the waste water to the clean water using a closed loop system. A heat pump increases the temperature of the water, which is then delivered to the district heat network. Electric heat pumps – essentially reverse fridges – are being developed on an industrial scale across the planet. In Clydebank, local authorities hope to use pumps to capitalise on the relative warmth of the local river to heat a new neighbourhood. Scotland has Europe’s worst record on renewable heat.

Herald »

Renewable Heat

Hydrogen

10 July 2019

Using hydrogen to heat homes and power vehicles will play a vital part in Britain’s efforts to meet stringent climate targets and can’t be dismissed as an expensive pipe dream. That’s the conclusion of National Grid Plc’s network service operator in its annual Future Energy Scenarios outlook. It anticipates 11 million homes will be heated by hydrogen by 2050, which is half of the number currently using natural gas. To get to a world that limits global warming to acceptable levels, hydrogen will be in widespread use across heat, transport and industrial processes, National Grid ESO said in the report. Policy makers should act immediately to maintain hope of hitting the government’s net-zero carbon emissions target by 2050, the network operator said, urging measures on a “significantly greater scale” than it had suggested a year ago.

Bloomberg »

Energy Efficiency
Renewable Heat
Renewables

User-Led Revolution in Energy Markets

3 July 2019

A user-led revolution in the way energy markets and infrastructure operates will be essential if the UK is to deliver the zero carbon energy system. That is the central conclusion from a wide-ranging new report from the Association for Decentralised Energy, which sets out how a combination of onsite heat and power generation technologies and advanced energy management systems could deliver significant financial savings for households and businesses, while enabling the rapid development of a net zero carbon energy system. It also argues the widespread adoption of smart energy management and grid balancing services should serve to place customers “at the heart of the way the UK meets its energy needs”, making it easier to engage the public with the wider net zero transition. “Whether through onsite generation, storage, energy efficiency, capturing waste heat or smart vehicle charging, the next stage of the energy revolution centres on the energy user,” said Dr Tim Rotheray, director of the ADE. The report estimates widespread efficiency upgrades could cut household energy bills by around a third, or £400 a year on average, while businesses could save £6bn through to 2030 thanks to cost effective energy efficiency measures. Similarly, the report argues energy storage systems and flexible grid services that automatically curb pressure on the grid at times of peak demand could unlock £800m in value for energy consumers through reduced bills and new financial incentives.

Business Green »

Renewable Heat

Rural District Heating

24 June 2019

DANISH-style district heating projects could cut fuel poverty in rural communities, according to a joint paper by gas firm Calor, think tank Common Weal and the Energy Poverty Research Initiative. The cost of rural district heating is not substantially higher than urban district heating schemes. This is because, while the distances are greater, the necessary pipework is easier to install because access is easier.However, this solution may only work for 60% of properties and those that cannot be connected could use biogas boilers in conjunction with building-mounted solar generators, the research found. The conclusion is based on research carried out with Glasgow Caledonian University and comes decades after Denmark took steps to create its large-scale networks, which collect “waste” heat from factories and transport systems and redistribute this. They also take in energy from conventional power stations and renewables. More than 90% of rural residents who are income poor are also fuel poor, according to research. This is far higher than in towns and cities and the problem is linked to poor physical and mental health and lower education attainment. Some campaigners summarise the situation for struggling households as a “heat or eat” choice.

The National  »

Renewable Heat

Heat Batteries

30 April 2018

Really disruptive technologies tend to be fairly rare in the renewable energy market. However, the heat batteries developed by Sunamp, which specialises in this area, look to be capable of being more disruptive than most of the innovations one sees in this space. Andrew Bissell, the CEO of Sunamp, claims that his products are highly likely to make conventional hot water cylinders obsolete in a relatively short space of time. The technology is now in its third iteration and is barely a third of the size of a typical hot water cylinder, such as households use for hot water. However, the company is currently prototyping much larger versions capable of scaling up to provide the heating needs of commercial companies from palette-sized to container-scale. In 2013, the Department of Energy and Climate Change gave Sunamp a contract to put the thermal storage system, alongside off-peak electricity and air-source heat pumps, into seven homes as a proof of concept trial. That was very successful heating the homes at half the cost of natural gas. The Sunamp put heat batteries into 650 homes. These were in two housing associations, East Lothian Housing and Castle Rock Edinvar.

Herald  »

Renewable Heat

Hydrogen

26 April 2018

Research from Northern Gas Networks and ITM Power concludes large scale power-to-gas energy storage could integrate with current gas networks. Ambitious plans to harness hydrogen’s potential as a form of energy storage and then inject the resulting green gas into the existing gas network could be delivered at scale, according to a major new government-backed feasibility study. Northern Gas Networks (NGN) and hydrogen technology specialist ITM Power announced this week that they have completed a collaborative desktop study, funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to explore the potential for large scale power to gas installations. The Power-to-Gas study examined potential deployment of large-scale storage capacity of 50 MW and above within the boundaries of NGN’s distribution network. It concluded that after accounting for seasonal variations in gas demand and the amount of hydrogen that would be able to be produced and blended with natural gas, a large area of the existing NGN grid could support power-to-gas.

Business Green »

Farm & Forest
Renewable Heat

Green Gas for Bristol

18 April 2018

Residents of Bristol could soon be cooking their evening meal using energy produced from poo, thanks to a new partnership announced yesterday between local utility Bristol Energy and anaerobic digestion experts GENeco. GENeco, the company behind the UK’s first bio-bus powered by sewage and liquid organic waste, is now supplying Bristol Energy with biomethane from sewage waste collected from the homes of a million people in the local area. GENeco now treats 75,000,000m3 of sewage waste every year, enough to power more than 8,000 homes with green gas. Customers who sign up to Bristol Energy’s My Green Plus tariff will receive 15 per cent green gas and 100 per cent green electricity, compared to a national average of 0.1 per cent. As well as using sewage to create green gas, GENeco also collects food waste as feedstock. Last October GENeco launched the first vehicle in the UK to both collect and run on commercial food waste. The Bio-Bee truck collects food waste and takes it to GENeco’s anaerobic digestion plant, where the waste is processed to remove any plastic and then turned into low carbon biogas.

Business Green »

Renewable Heat

Heat from Dis-used Mines in Glasgow

8 April 2018

Scientists are finalising plans to exploit the vast reservoir of warm water that fills a labyrinth of disused mines and porous rock layers underneath Glasgow. They believe this subterranean store of naturally heated water could be used to warm homes in the city. If the system proves successful, such water could then be exploited in other cities and towns across Britain, they say. The £9m project will initially involve drilling narrow boreholes filled with instruments to survey temperature, seismic activity, water flow, acidity and other variables to establish the state of the water in the rocks below the city. The aim will be to establish whether this warm water can be extracted for long periods to heat Glaswegian homes. Drilling of the first test boreholes – at sites yet to be selected – is the first part of an initiative by the BGS: the creation of several UK geo-energy observatories. Where other observatories look up to the sky, these will monitor conditions underground, say scientists. One test system has been selected for Scotland: the Glasgow Geothermal Energy Research Field Site. A second has been proposed for Cheshire – where scientists want to study rock conditions to assess the possibility of using underground vaults as storage for heated water. Heating of homes is set to become a crucial issue, researchers have warned. The UK is on target to decarbonise electricity generation as a result of the growing numbers of renewable power plants. However, the nation is still heavily reliant on North Sea and imported natural gas to heat its homes. Combustion of these fossil fuels forms a substantial part of the carbon dioxide emissions which the UK has pledged to reduce to help limit glob al warming.

Observer »

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Latest News

  • Potential for Green Jobs in Cumbria

    Proponents of Cumbria’s proposed coal mine often point to its potential to create 500 new roles. But the county could create thousands of jobs and attract billions of pounds of investment if it opts, instead, to expand low-carbon sectors. That is according to a new report  from local organisation Cumbria Action for Sustainability. The report outlines how 9,000 jobs could be created across the county in low-carbon sectors including renewable electricity generation and distribution; renewable heat; retrofitting buildings and sustainable waste management by 2035. Around half of these roles, the report stipulates, would be based in West Cumbria, where the UK’s first deep coal mine in more than three decades has been proposed. Of the 9,000 roles, renewable energy generation and infrastructure account for the biggest proportion – more than two-thirds. The report states that Cumbria could rapidly expand its onshore and offshore wind sectors, as well as solar, tidal and hydro, with the right support from government and the private sector.

  • Nottingham’s Net Zero Ambition

    Nottingham City Council has been named the overall winner in the Guardian’s Public Service Awards. He Council announced in January that it intended to become the UK’s first carbon-neutral city by 2028. It has already met its 2020 target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 26% four years early; more than 40% of all journeys in Nottingham are made on public transport and solar panels have been installed on more than 4,000 council houses. Energy consumption of council buildings has been cut by 39% and it is on track to generate 20% of its energy from low-carbon sources by next year. And last year the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs concluded that the city’s air pollution had fallen so much that a Clean Air Zone was not needed. Making the carbon neutral commitment was only possible, says Sally Longford, the Labour council’s deputy leader and portfolio holder for energy and environment, because of the work that had gone before. “We got a lot of stick over the years. People thought we were anti-car, because we introduced various schemes to try and reduce car usage and congestion.” But it has paid off. “When I was talking to the officers about how far we could push this they were confident we could go further than other councils because of all the work we’d already done.” One policy in particular, its workplace parking levy (WPL), was a “gamechanger” according to Longford. Introduced in 2012, the WPL is aimed at employers providing 11 or more commuter parking spaces, with an annual rate of £415 per space. It is still the only such scheme in the UK and has not only tackled congestion and pollution but netted the council £61m for improving and “greening” public transport. That money has helped with the redevelopment of Nottingham station, an expansion of the tram network that runs on green electricity from the council’s own energy company, and the council’s fleet of 58 electric buses that has reduced carbon emissions by more than 1,050 tonnes. “We have a positive attitude to these things because they pay for themselves,” says Longford. “We’re putting solar panels on anything that doesn’t move, really, because it saves us money in the long run and helps support other work we’re doing.” The energy and transport teams have won funding from central government, Europe and other sources, and the savings the energy team generates means it actually makes a profit for the council that can be used to cross-subsidise crucial departments such as children’s services.

  • Net Zero Bristol by 2030

    Bristol City Council – controlled by Labour – was the first council in the country to declare a climate emergency in November 2018. That motion was unanimously passed and now acts as the foundations for the City’s transformative commitment to become carbon-neutral by 2030. In 2015, Bristol became the UK’s first European Green Capital. And, having already recorded a 71% reduction in carbon emissions from its direct activities against a 2005 baseline – surpassing a target to reduce emissions by 65% by 2020 – it now has the lowest carbon footprint of any UK city. The City’s Energy, Transport and Green New Deal Lead Kye Dudd stresses the importance of the unitary authority continuing to lead the climate movement in a way that he hopes will create something of a domino effect of climate action among businesses, citizens and policymakers alike. “We need to extend our influence into the business sphere and to bring other people with us.” The Council recently partnered with Manchester-based blockchain technology company EnergiMine to reward council employees who partake in sustainable actions by using the EnergiToken (ETK) platform. ETK uses blockchain to incentivise actions that promote energy reduction, clean transport use and social cause initiatives. Employees can now earn tokens to spend on rewards – or donate the equivalent value to a registered charity – by acting in an environmentally sustainable way. Great progress has also been made outside of the Council’s own operations – particularly in the area of renewable energy. More than £50m has been invested in low-carbon and renewable energy projects in the region since 2012, and to great effect: Bristol sourced 21GWh of energy generation from solar, wind and biomass in 2018 – enough to power 24,000 homes for a month. Through the Council’s City Leap Strategy it hopes to attract a further £1bn of global investment in the city. Local partners already supporting the project include the University of Bristol, University of the West of England, Western Power Distribution, Bristol is Open, Invest Bristol and Bath, Bristol Green Capital Partnership and Bristol Energy. The signs are already looking positive: since its launch last year, the City Leap initiative has already garnered interested from almost 200 local organisations, international firms, investors and energy and infrastructure businesses. Dudd notes that district heat networks and community renewable energy projects are two areas where smaller local businesses can get involved. A 5MW community-owned solar project, has installed roof-mounted solar panels on public buildings. And a new network of underground pipes that will deliver affordable, low-carbon heat and energy across the city – is already benefitting more than 1,000 social housing properties and is continuing to expand. The Council voted in October to make Bristol the first UK city to ban public use of diesel cars from its streets to combat air pollution. While still requiring government approval, that scheme is set to start from 2021. Bristol’s Eastville Park is the first of four planned charging hub for the region, each hosting four to eight rapid-charge connections that can charge an EV up to 80% from 30 minutes’ charging. In total, four local authorities will install 120 new or replacement charge point connections across over the next year. The majority of the charge points will be supplied with 100% renewable energy provided by Bristol Energy.

  • Sunderland goes for Ground Source Heat Pumps

    Residents in 364 homes across seven tower blocks in Sunderland are seeing their gas boilers replaced with heat from ground source heat pumps. There will be a ground source heat pump for each flat which will also be connected to a district heating system consisting of ambient shared ground loop arrays. An underground aquifer will provide the heat source for the tower blocks, accessed via open loop boreholes drilled to depths of 60m. The ambient system prevents heat losses, overcoming overheating in the tower block communal areas, and boosts the system efficiency. The independent heat pumps mean that tenants can shop around for their electricity deal, whilst reducing carbon emissions by an estimated 420 tonnes or nearly 70% per year and improving local air quality. Gentoo Group is delivering the ‘Core 364’ project with the support of Engie and ground source heat pump specialists, Kensa Contracting. Work started in October, with all systems expected to be replaced by late Summer 2020. Gentoo’s chief executive officer, Nigel Wilson, said: “This heating system will provide heat and hot water at a much reduced cost, using natural heat from the ground. For more info see the presentati0on made by Kensa to the APSE Energy Summit in October https://www.apse.org.uk/apse/assets/File/Day%202%20-%20Session%205_2%20-%20Matthew%20Black.pdf

  • Solar Plus Storage for Cheshire Social Housing

    Cheshire West & Chester Council has announced plans to install solar panels with battery storage technology across two large estates. It has appointed Aberla Renewables, part of the Aberla Group, for the installations which include heating solutions that cover 180 council-owned homes. The team has started surveying properties and the project, which consists of solar panels with a total capacity of 250kW, is expected to be completed next year. The £500,000 project is part of the Low Carbon Housing Support Programme and has been jointly funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Cumbrian Energy Plans

There is huge potential to create ‘green’ jobs in Cumbria – employment opportunities that are good for both people and the environment. New research carried out for CAfS shows that the county could benefit from 9,000 new jobs in industries ranging from renewable energy and construction to transport. The findings are shared in their report The Potential for Green Jobs in Cumbria. Published on Friday 12 March 2021, the report will contribute to the crucial opportunity we have to plan for an economic recovery of Cumbria that accelerates the transition to a cleaner, net-zero emissions local economy after the devastating impacts of Covid-19. The report, supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, shows that: there are more than 1300 opportunities for green apprenticeship creation over 3 years in Cumbria, spread across the boroughs: Allerdale – 260; Copeland – 160; Barrow – 300; Carlisle – 350; Eden – 80; South Lakes - 160.

Cumbria is one place that could really benefit from a green recovery plan. A better route to economic prosperity after Covid-19 is urgently needed, one that is anchored in the industries of the future, rather than those of the past. A green recovery plan could be built around four key pillars: Cumbria’s rich potential for green economic development; Economic renewal through local net zero plans; Community participation in plans; Investment to make it happen.

Research by Friends of the Earth has revealed that creating 250,000 green apprenticeships leading to jobs including in renewable energy, woodland creation, and peatland restoration, would help address the crises in youth unemployment (that could cost today's unemployed young people £39bn in future earnings), and climate breakdown. Released in March 2021 the report “An emergency plan on green jobs for young people – why and how?” (by Transition Economics for Friends of the Earth) lays bare the scarring economic impact of youth unemployment from Covid-19 on individuals, local authorities, and the overall country. But the research also shows the huge potential for fighting the climate crisis with green jobs country-wide if apprenticeships are given proper government support.

Cumbria Renewable Energy and Capacity Deployment Study  A report by sustainable economic and social development consultants, SQW for Cumbria County Council published in August 2011 giving a detailed assessment of the renewable resources available.

The Scope for Renewable Energy in Cumbria  is a report published by the precursor body to Britain’s Energy Coast - Cumbria Vision in 2009. This envisioned the creation of almost 8,000 by 2050 from developing renewable energy.

The West Cumbria Economic Blueprint is the plan put forward in June 2012 by Britain’s Energy Coast, a public/private partnership made up of local authorities and nuclear groups in the area.

A Sustainable Energy Agency for Cumbria: Business Plan and  Annexes and Supporting Information - commissioned by Cumbria Vision and the North West Development Agency in 2009. A detailed plan for an Energy Agency to promote low-carbon distributed energy and energy efficiency. Cumbria has a huge renewable potential, and a number of leading renewable energy companies including  Gilkes and Energy4All. Despite this, it is not as effective as other areas in accessing funding and support for sustainable energy. Unfortunately the idea of the Agency was never taken forward.

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