Energy

2016 Thermal Imaging Feedback Evening

We had an excellent turnout at our recent Thermal Imaging Feedback evening, our best ever yet. The majority of people who had their property imaged were able to attend and have one-to-one feedback with one of our interpreters. Also on hand was Dale Hoyland from The National Energy Foundation to offer some excellent advice on energy efficiency and grants. Many thanks Dale, as always, your input was invaluable.

If you missed Dale at the event, there is another opportunity to speak to him at the FoE's AGM on Thursday 14th April in the Village Centre, 7.30 pm – 9.30 pm where Dale will be talking about 'Warm homes for less money'.

As in previous years all participants were emailed a copy of their report to digest at their leisure.
Many thanks to Will, Mike and Alan for interpreting the results and to Maureen and Jane for the lovely cakes.

All who participated in this years project have been emailed a questionnaire for feedback on their experience and are pleased the comments we are receiving are very useful and positive. If you have not yet completed the questionnaire, we would be grateful if you could do as soon as possible. This will enable us to continue to improve this valuable free service for next years participants. The feedback and comments are anonymous and an overall report, with responses to comments will be duly published.

 2015 Thermal Imaging Feedback Evening
All  the householders who were involved with the 2015 Thermal Imaging Campaign were given the opportunity to complete an anonymous online questionnaire and we are delighted with the feedback.

To highlight some of the successes of the campaign
  • 23.08% increase in awareness and ability to take action 77% either planning or considering taking action
  • 62% thought that the pre imaging information was either excellent or very good
  • 92% thought that the Greening Chinnor volunteers who carried out the test were either excellent or very good
  • 75% reported that the feedback and follow-up report were either excellent or very good.
We were delighted with the comments received which have enabled us to compile a Q&A section that will, besides being published, be sent out to future participants as part of the planning and preparation process.

Click here if you would like to see a copy of the result or go to our Minutes and Governance section on our website at www.greeningchinnor.blogspot.com. 


If you are interesting in participating in our 2016 project, which is totally free, email me at greeningchinnor@gmail.com.

 2015 Thermal Imaging Feedback Evening

 We had a great turn out for our Thermal Imaging Open Evening on Wednesday 25th March at The Village Centre, Chinnor.

Householders were given personal 1:1 feedback of their report by our imagers Alan and Will. After the feedback session, each householder was emailed a copy of their report for future reference and we will be following up to see if they have been able to make any changes and enjoy the benefits.

Thanks to Becky James from Green Homes Together and Kylie Shortreed from the National Energy Foundation for coming along and supporting this event. They were at hand to give free impartial advice. If you would like to find out more about what you can do to make your home more energy efficient and what possible grants are available to you, please click on the above links.   

Our Thermal Imaging list for 2016 is now open and we already have a few names on the list. Places are limited and if you are interested in having your property imaged for free in January please contact us.




12/10/12 - want to know how we use energy in our homes? A recent report from The Department for Energy & Climate Change, and The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs called "Powering the Nation" provides the richest insight yet into how we use our energy. Read here

It's jam packed with immensely useful data to aid fact-based decision making about energy saving investments. Worth a read.



27/3/12 update on the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) and Renewable Heat Incentive
DECC chose a bad news day to bury some more bad news in that it looks like the domestic RHI will be delayed into 2013.  However, they have extended the existing intering RHPP scheme which is mainly targeted at supporting domestic installations of renewable heating in off mains gas areas.  The RHPP does however provide a £300 grant towards solar hot water systems even if you have a gas boiler.  For full details of available RHPP funding see the DECC webpage.

Energy Savings Trust to run new energy efficiency help line.
EST is now a social enterprise with charitable status and has been selected to run a new energy efficiency help line which opens for calls on 2nd April this year providing free and impartial advice on all aspects of energy efficiency.

26/3/12 - some updates
Green Deal
Energy Bulk buying schemes

Forthcoming event: The National Energy Management Exhibition "NEMEX" will be held from 22-24th May at the NEC Birmingham.  For free registration to visit and see the exhibition and a range of useful seminars see www.nemex.co.uk A must for business energy users interested in enhancing their energy efficiency, or local businesses involved in supplying the energy efficiency market.
 

22/3/12 - Here is a copy of the presentation delivered at our AGM on the subject of "The rising cost of energy - what can we do" focussing on domestic energy bills and providing useful background to the energy market and numerous helpful links to reference materials tacking energy supplier profit margins, fuel poverty and the cost of social and green measures etc.

1/12/11 - Ofgem announce a domestic energy market review to try to simplify the energy market for consumers.  See here


10/11/11 - Fed up with conflicting news reports about how much cost various green measures add to you energy bill?  Here's an excellent report by National Energy Action, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the impact of energy efficiency/green measures on energy bills and social justice.  Fact based discussion - excellent! 20 pages but well worth the read.


7/11/11 There has been much in the press this week about Carbon Monoxide (CO not CO2) as part of a concerted effort to raise awareness of this invisible killer.  CO arises when combustion of fuels occurs in the absence of sufficient oxygen, commonly in poorly services boilers with leaky flues, or old gas fires etc.  This is not a small problem either.  50 people died last year from carbon monoxide poisoning and a further 4000 were affected.  For information on the symptoms of CO poisoning and advice on how to keep safe PLEASE visit www.co-bealarmed.co.uk - a cross industry campaign with the objective of zero CO deaths.
This is nicely aligned with the campaign to encourage people to install/check their smoke alarms at the same time as the clocks change.  That way, you know when the battery was last changed.
I fitted a CO alarm in my kitchen yesterday.  Cost of alarms varies from about £12.50 in Wickes at the moment to nearly £30 for a unit with an LCD display showing statistics about the CO levels measured in your home.  They are very easy to install as a DIY job and most can be easily detached and taken on holiday with you to ensure you're safe when you stay in a holiday apartment, cottage etc.
Colin

1/11/11 SMEs missing out on £7.7 billion energy efficiency savings.  Interesting article from Greenwisebusiness.co.uk


31/10/11 Feed-in Tariffs to be slashed for new domestic PV schemes after 12/12/11.  Generation tariff payment is expected to fall from 43.3p/kWh to just 21 pence.  Government aims to ensure tariff remains appropriate as PV prices have fallen, but also seeks to restrict burden on domestic bill payers as the success of the scheme grows rapidly. The review is at consultation- which finishes in December.  For full details see DECC website.



14/10/11 some useful publications today from Ofgem.  Most have been widely reported or misreported in the press.  The following though is a useful idea.
The outcome of this process will be interesting.  Whilst tariff simplication is highly desirable, there remains a need to offer customers choices reflecting how/when they use their energy, and allow for innovation to encompass new structures in the future - e.g. to reward customers for proactive demand side management.

7/10/11 - DECC and Ofgem published the latest data on the uptake of the Feed-in Tariff yesterday covering the period up to the end of September.  Uptake has continued to accellerate in terms of both installed generation capacity and number of installs. See the spreadsheet here


LOCAL SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC INSTALLATIONS
Greening Chinnor Campaign is trying to keep a log of the number of PV installations locally to assess the impact on energy bills and CO2 reduction in our communities. On a quick sweep of 15 installations we've spotted so far estimated there is an installed capacity of some 40.6 kW peak output producing some 34500 kWh per year, saving around 18.7 tonnes of CO2 annually.  If you are having PV installed please let us know and we'll add you into the totals, since not all arrays are visible from the street. See the "contact us" link on the right hand side of the page.  The above figures don't include any PV installed on new properties by the cement works.


6/10/2011.  The BBC reports that the cheapest annual energy bills for gas and electricity have now topped the £1000 mark for a typical home.  This makes it more sense than ever to take up our Greening Challenges around reducing energy use in your home.  Here are details of our challenges, with statistics from the Energy Savings Trust about the amount of £s you can save and the associated CO2 emissions.

Here's a blog article which claims to debunk a number of commonly held energy myths. Some of the content is rather high level and lacks good examples or references, so feel free to make further research.

FEED-IN TARIFFS

The FITs scheme is run by The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).  Full details of FITS can be found here
Advice to consumers on the FITs, Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and other fiscal support for domestic energy saving or generation is provided by The Energy Savings Trust here
If you are thinking about installing microgeneration (e.g. solar PV, micro CHP, small biomass boilers, heat pumps or solar hot water) then read up on the support available and question your potential suppliers.  All suppliers should be Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) accredited in order for your scheme to be eligible for FITs or RHI payments.  Any MCS accredited installed should be able to give excellent advice about the likely income from FITS.

Domestic RHI payments are not yet available, and are expected to be introduced in October 2012 alongside the Green Deal.  In the meantime details of the interim Renewable Heat Premium Payment Scheme can be found on the Energy Savings Trust link above.

GREEN DEAL
This is supposed to be one of the flagship green policies from the Coalition Government and is due to be available to domestic energy users and SME businesses in order to provide low interest loans for the installation of energy efficiency measures.  The scheme is still under development so the list of eligible measures is not yet published.  However, the "golden rule" of the Green Deal is that measures installed must pay for themselves from the energy savings they generate, and the cost will be recouped by your energy supplier through your energy bill.  Yes, it does sound a bit complicated...
In the meantime, Price Waterhouse Coopers has recently established a not for profit consortium of interested Green Deal suppliers in a Green Deal Finance Company to ensure that Green Deal loans can be kept at lower than commercial interest rates.  See this Guardian article for more info.



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