Government ready to abandon nuclear newbuild, says protest group

The government is prepared to abandon its nuclear programme if there is sufficient opposition from the public, and has in place an alternative strategy which involves a stop-gap implementation of combined heat and power plants, Stop New Nuclear's spokesperson Camilla Berens told me today.

She claimed that Chris Huhne told her this last year, when he was energy secretary, at a meeting arranged by the organisation.

"He said the strategy was that to start with most of these CHP plants would be fuelled by conventional gas, which would be replaced over time by an increasing amount of zero carbon gas from anaerobic digestion," she said.

This would fill the energy gap until a sufficient amount of renewable electricity come online from other sources: offshore wind and marine.

She said that, "a decentralised approach with a broad mix of renewable and energy-efficient technologies can help reduce any future stresses brought about by foreign energy providers.

"Arguably, if the gas-fed CHP route is taken, it’s possible the Europe might be hit by a repeat of the kind of disruption caused by Russia’s dispute with the Ukraine in 2009. But the nuclear sector faces similar uncertainty.

"The world’s leading uranium producer is Kazakhstan – a nation that offers no greater reassurance of future energy security than its Russian neighbour. Meanwhile, the long-distance transportation of uranium from mines in Canada and Australia also presents risks in terms of accidents and terrorism," said Camilla.

A further alternative strategy, which again uses the Government's own figures, has been proposed in a report published earlier this month called A Corruption of Governance?, by the Association for the Conservation of Energy and pressure group Unlock Democracy.

This document also accuses the government of a pro-nuclear stitch-up, .

Thames Water makes electricity from dried poo. Is this good?

The above picture is not coffee granules. Do not add water. Do not attempt to drink.

It is dried poo, and Thames Water is using it to generate electricity.

The sewage company has installed a £1.5m sewage sludge dryer at its treatment plant in Slough and estimates that the resulting renewable fuel will be worth £300,000 and reduce its carbon emissions by over 500 tonnes a year.

Rupert Kruger, Thames Water’s head of innovation, said: “This is the first time in Britain that a waste dryer has been used to create ready-to-burn fuel from sewage sludge, rather than simply being used as a waste-reducer."

The dryer will process five tonnes of sewage sludge a day, which represents a fifth of the solid remains of the treatment process, heating it to about 180oC and stirring it with heated rotating paddles.

The fuel, which then has a calorific value similar to that of brown coal (8–10 MJ/kg), is transported to Thames Water's Crossness sewage works in Bexley, East London, and fed into a combined heat and power generator to generate renewable electricity.

The CHP plant has so far burnt 160 tonnes of ‘sludge cake’ a day. This unsavoury name refers to de-watered solids from sewage - the conventional form of post-treatment waste.

However, sludge cake is still 75% water. In order to burn this wet fuel, the generator also has to burn non-renewable gas from the grid.

But the new dried poo granules only contain 5% water, so this will help to reduce the amount of gas required, which is where the carbon savings come in.

The Slough sludge dryer is also eligible for additional Government ROC (Rewewable Obligation Certificate) support, providing extra revenue.

A further saving is achieved from a reduction in the number of truck journeys required to transport the sludge to where it was previously spread on agricultural land as fertiliser.

However, the process does mean that the nutrient value of the material is lost, leaving farmers to have to source alternative fertiliser elsewhere.

Sewage is a vital source of nutrients that have been removed from the soil in the form of food in the first place.

Traditionally, 'night soil' was always composted and used as a soil conditioner - for example in nineteenth century Paris, which was able to feed itself from the market gardens which surrounded it and which were fertilised this way.

The nutrients have to be found somewhere, and if they are burnt, where is that to be? From slurry from intensive pig farms and anaerobic digestion?

I hope so. Thames Water does not say.

The dryer at the Slough sewage works, developed by US firm Komline-Sanderson, is 98% thermally efficient, which means all but 2% of the energy used to heat the system is used.

However, the fuel created with this method is not entirely renewable because the drying process consumes 800kWh per tonne of dehydration water, which is typically supplied by fossil fuels.

A cheaper and more eco-friendly solution is practised in a plant that came online in May this year, at a sewage treatment facility in Strass, Styria. This dries the sludge using solar thermal power.

Run by the regional wastewater association of Leibnitzerfeld Süd and using a patented Wendewolf® process, this drying method requires just 30kWh of electricity for each tonne of dehydration water - a reduction of 98%.

At 126.3 metres, the solar dryer at Strass is currently the world’s longest solar sludge drying unit, and treats 1,700 tonnes of sludge a year, turning it into 460 tonnes of granules.

Back at Thames Water, Rupert Kruger insists that their new plant is part of the company's ongoing transition to turn more of its product into revenue-generating renewable fuels.

“For decades we have generated £15m a year of electricity by burning biomethane from sewage," he says, pointing out also that last year the company was the first in the UK to feed renewable gas, from sewage at a plant in Didcot, Oxfordshire, into the gas supply network.

It has also agreed plans to build Europe’s first reactor to produce phosphate-based fertiliser from sewage, also at Slough.

"The new sludge dryer is the next chapter in our quest unlock the full energy potential of waste,” he said.

Crossness is one of two Thames Water sites with sludge-powered generators. A further twenty, including the one at Slough, generate electricity and heat by burning biomethane gas from sewage, to help power the company's works.

The company claims this saves an average of £15m a year on energy bills.

Renewable heat incentive rewards solar water heating but will increase air pollution

Chris Huhne has finally announced much-awaited details of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme.

It covers such technologies as solar water heating, using wood, wood pellets and woodchips, air and ground source heat pumps, energy from waste, on-site biogas, deep geothermal and injection of biomethane into the grid.

36% of the UK’s overall energy is used for heat, creating 175 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year.

The industry had originally hoped that the scheme would start at the same time as the Feed-In Tariffs for renewable electricity a year ago, then it was expected this April, but now payments won't be be available to households until October 2012.

The scheme has become a victim of government cuts and will be smaller in size than originally thought and introduced in phases.

Importantly, because of criticism of the potential impact on fuel bills, the RHI will not be funded by an RHI levy but from general Government spending.

As a result, it will be introduced in two phases. In phase 1, more than a quarter of the first year's budget, around £15 million, is to be guaranteed up to 25,000 household installations through a premium payment scheme.

Phase 1 will focus on people living off the gas grid, who typically spend more on their heating and whose fuels, like coal, have a higher carbon content.

Participants will then provide feedback on how the scheme works to help design the second phase.

In this phase, coinciding with the introduction of the Green Deal, the scheme will expand so that by 2020 there will be an estimated 13,000 installations in industry, 110,000 in the commercial and public sector supply 25% of this sector is demand, and creating 150,000 jobs.

Carbon savings and air pollution

It is hoped that the scheme will help deliver 44 million tonnes of carbon dioxide savings by 2020, though 8 million of these are already accounted for by the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Those emissions within the emissions trading scheme will cost £35/tCO2 and those outside the scheme a further £12 per tonne.

However, there are concerns about the impact on air quality of a lot of new biomass combustion, particularly from particulates such as PM10. The final RHI proposals could lead to 28TWh of biomass burned. and assessment by Defra of the proposals shows that this could lead to up to £2.6 billion of potential lifetime social cost.

This is a staggering amount.

The Tariffs

The highest tariffs will be paid to solar thermal water heating (8.5p/kWh) small biomass schemes (7.6p/kWh or 1.9p/kWh - see below why), and biomethane (6.5p/kWh). Small ground source heat pump schemes will receive 4.3p/kWh, and large schemes 3p/kWh.

Municipal solid waste schemes including Combined Heat and Power (CHP) will receive 4.7p/kWh or 1.9p/kWh, depending on which tier they are in, and large biomass schemes 2.6p/kWh.

Solar water heating was by far the most popular renewable energy technology under the previous renewable energy subsidy schemes like Clear Skies. It works very well in the UK and can supply between 40 and 50% of domestic hot water requirements, so it is good that it receives the most support.

Because of doubts about their efficiency air source heat pumps will not be eligible at the start of the RHI. Nor will heat pumps that deliver the heat to air as opposed to water. Some will consider this unfair, but it is to do with the difficulty of metering this kind of heat.

Heat meters will need to be installed at the point of generation and, where appropriate, at the point of usage in order to claim payments.

Bioliquids also will not be eligible from the start because of the complexity of the market and their uses in transport etc. They can also have a high energy density.

RHI support will only be available if the installation in question has not received (and will not receive) any other public funding.

The tariffs will be paid for 20 years to the eligible technologies that have been installed since July 15, 2009 with payments for each kilowatt of renewable heat produced.

Payments, which will be administered by Ofgem, are to be claimed by, and paid to, the owner of the heat installation or the producer.

These payments will be fixed for the lifetime of the scheme, once a measure is installed, adjusted in line with inflation. But the levels of support available for new entrants as time goes on may decrease.

Rewards linked to energy conservation

Following criticism that there might be no requirement that the building in question has an efficient fabric, by being introduced with the Green Deal, homes must be insulated to reduce demand, as with earlier schemes, such as the Low Carbon Building Programme, because everyone knows is more cost efficient to save energy than to generate it.

There has been a worry about what happens when some smart meters enter into the market. When buildings are metered on a half hourly basis energy the incentive will be to run your equipment as much as possible because the more your meter ticks over, the more money you make.

This has to some extent been met by introducing a two-tier tariff system for biomass boilers to reduce incentive to over-generate. Upon reaching a prescribed level of heat generation, the tariff drops to a lower tier 2 tariff. For solar thermal, once the equipment is installed, the amount of heat generated is not controlled by the owner.

The RHI has been a long time coming. There are many in the industry raring to get installing, and there is a huge potential market. But most will have to wait a good while yet before they can take advantage of the scheme.

Biomass-fired CHP - one third the price of the next cheapest power source

Councils or businesses would be well advised to construct biomass-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plants to satisfy their energy needs as the cheapest possible option - one that might even make a profit - of all possible energy solutions.

This is one conclusion of a set of figures published by DECC and highlighted this week in a parliamentary answer by Charles Hendry.

The tables below are taken from Mott Macdonald (2010) and give levelised cost estimates (average lifetime generation cost per megawatt-hour) for new build plants in the main large-scale electricity generation technologies in the UK, at current engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract prices.

Mott MacDonald comment that the CHP options reveal the lowest cost power by far, at only £24.9/MWh, one third the cost of a gas powered plant, once the steam revenues are factored in.

Assumptions include that the projects are able to secure a 100% use for their steam over the whole plant life, which may not always be possible, unless companies/councils are using the heat for their own premises. Another assumption is that carbon prices will continue to increase.

The biomass-fired schemes, which have much higher heat-to-power ratios, have the lowest net costs, even seeing negative costs in the medium to long term - i.e., they could make money for the developer.

Even if the biomass CHP schemes can capture only half of the projected steam credit, the costs would still be less than £70/MWh in 2020.

The table reveals other interesting aspects the cost of some renewables, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage:

• offshore wind power is the most expensive form of power at £190/MWh for Round 3 of the bids

• integrating CCS (carbon capture and storage) into coal or gas fired plant would substantially raise capital and operating costs.

• the leading 3rd generation nuclear designs, although projected to incur a significant first build premium, have a lower levelised cost at £99/MWh than an Advanced Super Critical (ASC) coal plant without CCS, but still significantly higher than Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT).

• anaerobic digestion is not as cost effective as normally assumed

• landfill gas and sewage gas are much more cost-effective than energy from waste.

Under DECC’s central carbon price projection, the premium for CCS versus un-scrubbed plants is £32-38/MWh, although the carbon costs on the un-scrubbed coal and gas plants is £40/MWh and £15/MWh, respectively.

In the longer term, as these technologies bring costs down from experience, the levelised costs of CCS equipped plant will undercut those for the un-scrubbed plant.

Even then, the CCS equipped plants still see levelised costs of £105-115/MWh with gas at the lower end, and coal at the upper end of the range. Adopting DECC’s low carbon price projection would see the CCS equipped plant continuing to be more expensive than a non-equipped plant through the 2020s.

The tables

It should be noted that for the purposes of presentation, the table only gives either 'FOAK' (first-of-a-kind) prices or 'NOAK' (nth-of-a-kind) prices for each technology. On offshore wind, for example, it shows offshore wind 'FOAK' prices, whereas the round 2 technology may be considered to have progressed towards 'NOAK' prices. Mott Macdonald estimate 'NOAK' offshore wind costs at £125/MWh (10% discount rate, 2009 project start at today's EPC prices).

Case 1: 10% discount rate, 2009 project start at today's EPC prices, with mixed FOAK/NOAK
Levelised cost	Gas CC GT	Gas CCGT with CCS FOAK	ASC coal	ASC c oal with CCS FOAK	Coal IGCC FOAK	Coal IGCC with CCS FOAK	Onshore wind	Offshore wind FOAK	Offshore wind R3 FOAK	Nuclear PWR. FOAK
Capital Costs	12.4	29.8	33.4	74.1	61.7	82.0	79.2	124.1	144.6	77.3
Fixed operating Coals	3.7	7.7	8.6	18.6	9.7	17.7	14.6	36.7	45.8	12.25
Variable Operating Costs	2.3	3.6	2.2	4.7	3.4	4.6	__	__	__	2.1
Fuel Costs	46.9	65.0.	19.9	28.7	20.3	28.3	__	__	__	5.3
Carbon Costs	15.1	2.1	40.3	6.5	39.6	5.5	__	__	__	__
Decomm and waste fund	__	__	__	__	__	__	__	__	__	2.1
CO2 transport and storage	__	4.3	__	9.6	__	9.5	__	__	__	__
Steam Revenue	__	__	__	__	__	__	__	__	__	__
Total levelised cost	80.3	112.5	104.5	142.1	134.6	147.6	93.9	160.9	190.5.	99.0

Case 1: 10% discount rate, 2009 project start at today's EPC prices, with mixed FOAK/NOAK
Levelised Cost	Small business power only. FOAK	Large biomass power only. FOAK	OCGT	AD on waste	Landfill gas	Sewage gas	Small biomass CHP. FOAK
Capital Costs	55.8	46.1	7.1	63.8	25.8	42.0	91.3
Fixed operating Coals	21.0	13.4	3.0	21.0	13.1	8.9	23.9
Variable Operating Costs	2.5	2.5	1.5	18.6	21.1	2.1	2.8
Fuel Costs	36.7	31.2	60.6	__	__	__	54.9
Carbon Costs	__	__	18.2	__	__	__	__
Decomm and waste fund	__	__	__	__	__	__	__
CO2 transport and storage	__	__	__	__	__	__	__
Steam Revenue	__	__	__	__	__	__	148.5
Total levelised cost	116.0	93.2	90.5	103.3	60.0	54.0	172.9
Net levelised cost	__	__	__	__	__	__	24.4

Levelised Cost	Large biomass CHP. FOAK	10MW gas. CHP	Small GT based CHP	CCGT. CHP	Energy from waste	Hydro reservoir
Capital Costs	86.8	17.2	15.1	14.3	94.9	74.2
Fixed operating Coals	22.0	4.8	4.3	5.0	15.2	9.0
Variable Operating Costs	2.4	2.4	2.4	1.9	56.7	-
Fuel Costs	48.7	83.4	76.8	57.1	-	-
Carbon Costs	-	25.5	23.5	18.5	-	-
Decomm and waste fund	-	-	-	-	-	-
CO2 transport and storage	-	-	-	-	-	-
Steam Revenue	135.0	56.6	45.2	27.2	-	-
Total levelised cost	160.0	133.4	122.1	96.7	166.8	83.2
Net levelised cost	24.9	76.8	76.8	69.4	-	-

The cost-effectiveness of low or zero carbon energy generation

This update is following from my previous blog and George Monbiot's attack on feed-in tarriffs and responses to it.

Reliable independent figures on cost-effectiveness of low or zero carbon energy generation based on real monitored examples are yet few, and I'm trying to collate them, because this kind of evidence is what we need to help determine policy.

Crucially, page 37 of the 2009 impact assessment of the Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP) (which places an obligation on energy suppliers and electricity generators to meet a CO2 reduction target) ranks the effectiveness of non-large-scale generation measures in kgCO2 per pound sterling spent as follows:

1 Existing community heat to CHP 88 (kg CO2 score per £ spent)
2 Electric to community CHP 39
3 Wood pellet boilers (primary) 24
4 Micro Hydro (0.7kWp, 50% LF) 16
5 Ground source heat pumps 14
6 Air source heat pump 13
7 MiniCHP (revised) 9
8 Mini-wind 5 kW, 20% LF 4
9 Solar Water Heater (4m2) 4
10 Photovoltaic panels (2.5 kWp) 3
11 Micro Wind (1 kWp, 1% LF) 0

From this it is quite glaringly obvious that for both heat and power the community scale is by far the most efficient level for interventions. Right at the bottom are the single-dwelling only solutions (I dispute the figures for wood pellet boilers since data on their carbon content is disputed) except where hydro is available (not many places).

The Electricity and Gas (Carbon Emissions Reduction) Order 2008 (CERT) looked into the cost and carbon reduction effectiveness of various measures. The document Explanatory Memorandum To The Electricity And Gas (Carbon Emissions Reduction) Order 2008 contains a further Evidence Base.

In this community CHP with woodchips comes out at nine times more cost-effective in ££ per tonne of carbon saved than solar water heating and about the same as ground source heat pumps.

The figures are (- with suppliers’ cost to save one tonne C02 (£/tC02) for the Priority Group):
1 Community heating with wood chip 3
2 Ground source heat pumps 42
3 Wood chip CHP 49
4 Wood pellet boilers (primary) 58
5 Micro Hydro (0.7kWp, 50% LF) 60
6 Log burning stoves 110
7 Mini-wind 5 kW, 20% LF 125
8 Wood pellet stoves (secondary) 126
9 mCHP 176
10 Photovoltaic panels (2.5 kWp) 218
11 Solar Water Heater (4m2) 346
12 Micro Wind (1 kWp, 10% LF) 685
13 Community ground source heat pumps 697

The above underscores that renewable energies are frequently site-dependent and sensitive to economies of scale, because you have to cost the whole system.

Only 2% of UK homes can have a small wind turbine. This Energy Saving Trust report suggests the best sites and how to pick them.

Solar electricity

In my previous blog I link to actual surveys of real PV installations and the figures show that they do not generate sufficient power in the UK when we need it for the reason that there is not enough sunshine in the winter - unless you have a huge array, which is currently very expensive.

If PVs could become as cheap as a low-e coated window unit, with spray-on or printed nano-scale circuitry or similar it might be worthwhile. This is a technological advance not a deployment advance. They would also need to capture a greater range of frequencies of light.

I would suggest that the standard for measuring and marketing the rated output of a panel or a system is changed to make it more realistic and easier for buyers to understand. As discussed in the blog above, the test conditions are way different from European field conditions and led to unreal expectations, or to potential obfuscation by the industry/ unscrupulous installation companies.

Conclusion

All of this suggests that while renewable heat can work on a community level, only CHP can universally provide electricity, whatever the power source, and then not that much in relation to demand since there is a limit to the available waste, waste heat and biomass.

Therefore we have to conclude that for renewable electricity generation larger scale wind and marine power are what is required at a massive scale. Of these, only wind is currently cost-effective and that is why it is being aggressively pursued offshore and onshore.

Renewable domestic heating

On a domestic level, the Government has committed to support domestic micro-CHP with £2,300* cash support. But this does not apply to district level heating schemes.

This article looks at both ideas, carbon impacts and support in the UK.

District heating

District heating is more carbon-efficient than heating individual homes where the density of accommodation is high enough. The example in Southampton is often cited.

The idea was part of last year's DECC Heat and Energy Saving Strategy Consultation. It did suggest support for these schemes.

The conclusions were published in August 2009. We're still waiting to see what the Government decides to do.... and will probably wait for some time as there is an election on.

District heating is recommended to the Government by this month's report from the Green Building Council. This says:

1. Public sector buildings should be required, where available and viable, to connect to existing or planned community heat networks, to provide an ‘anchor load’ of demand, and large businesses should be encouraged to do the same.

2. The ‘allowable solutions’ mechanism should be used as a way of providing additional ring fenced capital to support the delivery of heat infrastructure. Government has said that developers will be able to invest in so-called 'allowable solutions' in order to meet the required standard when constructing new zero carbon buildings.

It says nothing about existing non-public buildings though.

Neither is district heating part of the current renewable heat consultation. This scheme, which is due to start in April 2011, will subsidise a rapid increase in the number of homes and offices heated by woodfuel, biogas, solar thermal, heat pumps and waste-to-energy technologies. The deadline for responses to this consultation is Monday 26 April so do have your say.

District heating systems are ideal if a whole street, area or block of flats is to be renovated. Economies of scale make this form of heat and power delivery the cheapest on a per-household basis, and by far the most carbon-efficient, if low carbon fuel sources are specified.

A district heating scheme in Southampton, England, serves many residential developments from gas-fired CHP and geothermal energy, saving 11,000 tonnes of carbon a year and benefiting residents with a service price 5 per cent less than the market rate.

Systems are most efficient when servicing both homes and businesses or premises used during the day, as the two heat loads throughout a 24 hour period suit the continuous running required of a large plant.

District CHP plants may utilize fuel sources from waste to biomass, as well as geothermal where it is available. They work best where buildings are close together. A not-for-profit energy service company is usually formed to manage the system.

Micro-CHP

Micro-CHP – combined heat and power – is a nascent technology of small units for individual homes, typically the size of a fridge. They run on natural gas to produce up to about 10kW of power.

The current crop of models are based on the Stirling engine, Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) or internal combustion engine. The first two have high thermal efficiency and output but low electrical efficiency (10 per cent) – and this is a sticking point.

Electricity output is around 1.1kW, enough to maintain back-up power in the event of a power cut or boil a kettle. A 1kWe (1kW electrical power) model from Honda called Ecowill has sold well in Japan.

A 2007 trial by the UK’s Carbon Trust concluded that micro-CHP can cut electricity bills and overall CO2 emissions by 15–20 per cent when they’re the lead boiler in larger contexts like care homes, district schemes, apartment blocks and leisure centres.

The best individual home for them therefore is a medium-to-large, moderately well-insulated one, maybe with solid walls, solid floors and no loft space that is harder to insulate well and has a relatively large heat demand.

Here, micro-CHP units can potentially deliver carbon savings of 5–10 per cent – fewer than a condensing boiler, since capacity is likely to be best matched to demand, for both heat and power.

Payback can be as little as five years. But they offer limited benefits for smaller and newer dwellings.

The key to success is matching the thermal output to the building’s pattern of use so that they operate not intermittently but for many hours at a time, making the value of electricity generated pay for the marginal investment in as little as three years in a typical family home.

It therefore works best with a buffer storage tank to save the surplus heat for later.

Grid connection for electricity export is going to be crucial to micro-CHP’s widespread acceptance. On average, half of all electricity generated by a typical 1kWe micro-CHP device is exported to the grid as it’s not needed at the time.

Reliability is also a key issue – service agreements will be essential. So homeowners shouldn’t yet trade in their condensing boilers, which have about the same overall heating efficiency – 90 per cent – without also producing electricity, but they might keep an eye on developments.

Superinsulated homes will have to wait until the next generation of machines, based on fuel cells. These generally come in two types – proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs).

They have a heat to power ratio that is approximately equal so for example they could produce 5kW of heat and 5kW of electricity.

Support for micro-CHP

Under the Feed-in Tarriff scheme, from the 1st April 2010, microCHP units with a capacity below 2kW will receive 10p per kW hour generated, for a period of ten years. This tariff is available for the first 30,000 microCHP installations. A review will take place when 12,000 units have been installed.

However the Government has not followed through on commitments made in the Energy Act to support miniCHP units of up to 50 kW capacity.

* - based on 10p generation tariff and assuming a 3p pence export rate. Assuming annual generation of 2000 kWh and 50% export. Assuming import electricity price of 14p kWh-1. The total income paid to a generator over a 10 year FiT period would be £2,300 over full period of 10 years. Annual figure therefore of £230.

The Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme is the first phase of the Government’s Clean Energy Cashback programme - see the Energy Saving Trust website for details.

What is the most carbon efficient heating?

An independent survey conducted by the UK Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes which looked at the carbon impact of different domestic heating and hot water systems in both houses and flats concluded that the following performed best, all other things being equal (figures in kgCO2/m2/yr):
• community heating and CHP, fuelled wholly or mainly by biomass - 4.15
• community heating without CHP fuelled wholly or mainly by biomass - 7.11
• wood burning boilers - 10.02
• wood burning boilers with solar water heating panels - 10.09
• ground source heat pumps with low temperature heat distribution/emitters (e.g. underfloor heating) - 20.83
• solar water heating panels in conjunction with gas boiler systems - 21.98

Source: Heating Strategy Group of the Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes, January 2008

Bloom box mania - behind the hype

Lot of fuss in the States about the 'Bloom Box'. Wild claims and fantasy. Let's just set it straight:

What is it? = a solid oxide fuel cell

What does it do? = convert one type of energy - hydrocarbon chemical - into another - electricity

Is it renewable? - Depends what you charge up the fuel cell with. As with electric cars, think beyond the battery. It runs on ethanol, biodiesel, methane or natural gas. At least one of these (the last) is not renewable. Ethanol can be distilled from plants. Methane can be tapped from landfill/sewage etc. Whether the first two are sustainable (the real question) depends on the original bio-material - plenty of controversy about biofuels right now. Indonesian palm oil? No thanks. Displacing food-growing? Also no. High fertiliser and pesticide input? (ie fossil fuel and pollution) Also no.

Is it efficient? = The unit is not even a mini-chp (combined heat and power) plant - so the heat output is wasted. Solid oxide fuel cells have an efficiency of around 50% - better than a conventional power plant (32%) but CHP is over 90%.

Should I buy one? = You're better off with a mini-CHP and using the heat. These're also fridge-sized, will heat your building a well as power it, are more efficient when grid-connected, and will be mass market in a couple of years. They are already fairly big in Japan.

Ofgem consults on distributed energy

The energy watchdog is conducting a 12-week consultation on distributed low-carbon electricity.

This is about medium-sized generation for communities and larger businesses - domestic microgeneration is being considered separately.

This is a technical document for owners and operators of distributed energy schemes, electricity suppliers, generators, distribution network operators, consumer groups, local authorities, property developers, and manufacturers and suppliers of small-scale renewable generation and CHP plant.

There will be a summary and workshop early in 2008 for non-specialists.

Deadline for response: 11 March 2008.

The document is here