Changing behaviour around energy use: the role of investors
The Queen's House Greenwich with the standby Greenwich gas - and formerly oil and coal-fired - power station on right and Canary Wharf behind. The power station was originally designed by the LCC architects department in the early 1900s to provide power for London County Council Tramways.
The Department for Business, Energy & industrial Strategy's (BEIS) Leader in Local Energy, Patrick Allcorn, spoke at our Future Cities Forum in November to local authorities, investors and architects on the future of green energy and sustainability in towns and cities.
There were questions to be answered on whether district heat networks are the solution for reducing carbon emissions in cities, how new power projects can be designed to fit sensitively into urban environments and whether green technologies will provide new and much needed jobs to support local economies.
Patrick said: '
'District heat networks are part of the solution for big urban centres where there is high heat use. Heat is the biggest use of energy in the UK, bigger than transport use. The heat challenge is the biggest challenge we have. Nottingham has had a district heat network for 40 years - it is not new technology but it matters where the source of heat comes from, for example, taking people off oil and replacing it with something else to provide a significant carbon saving. A gas unit is not necessarily producing high carbon savings, so you have to think about the transition to hydrogen in the future for this. The big win is in low emission fuels.
'There is also a big win around mass take up, not so much around individual choices. So public sector swimming pools and hospitals can drive the economies of those heat networks. It is much harder to reach lower demand heat communities, so it has been necessary for the public sector to lead that debate.
There is an interesting opportunity for local authorities around commercial models - on investment and returns - and what they can achieve with that. Can they de-carbonise other buildings? We are supporting 180 local authorities to explore the development of this. They should look at their building stock on an area wide basis.
Architect at Grimshaw, Annabel Koeck joined the discussion to talk about the practice's North London Heat and Power Project with the North London Waste Authority, the second largest waste disposal authority in the UK and a statutory authority established in 1986 and whose principal responsibility is the disposal of waste. Annabel described how the project at Edmonton is being built on an existing energy site next to the new Meridian Water Master plan. The project which is a brand new facility will create low-carbon energy from non-recycle-able household waste for seven north London boroughs.
The North London Heat and Power Project will be made up of three main elements as part of a new EcoPark development - an energy recovery facility, a resource recovery facility including a recycling centre, and an education and visitor centre. Annabel told the forum:
'Installing a visitor centre on site is so important as the technology is changing so quickly and it is essential to be open and transparent with the public where you can on the whole process of recycling. Cities are densifying producing growing waste, there is a breadth of technologies and it is vital to start to engaging with the public, making these sites publicly accessible. People can take their waste to the site so these projects are becoming a physical point of contact for waste. It is so important as there is such a lot of misinformation around these heat and waste projects.'
The energy recovery facility is the major component and has a shrink wrap design and steps down towards the adjacent Lee Valley Regional Park to minimise the impact of the building on its surroundings. The education and visitor centre will be a two-storey building which will face onto the River Lee Navigation.
Peter Radford, Principal at investor
Amber Infrastructure, was asked about the education programme that might still be required to convince local authorities to take up funding for district heat projects. Amber Infrastructure has been running MEEF - the GLA's Mayor of London's Energy efficient fund, which Peter says provides soft funding for the public sector and has been involved in the heat network at Enfield.