Energy production
Projects
We previously covered Practical Tips for this theme, now we want to look at Projects that the town, community groups or businesses can sponsor or participate in, to Build Back Better, and help achieve the carbon net-zero goal that SDC has set for 2030.
“Our work clearly demonstrates that we already have the tools and technology needed to efficiently power the UK with 100% renewable energy”
Zero Carbon Britain - rising to the climate emergency, Centre for Alternative Technology.
Projects
It can seem that energy product is something that happens elswehere, on a national scale, but the beauty of renewables is that they can happen on many different scales. We are interested in projects that can happen at a relatively local scale. Some of the project ideas suggested so far for Energy production:
Public Buildings: To lobby for all publics buildings to be fitted with renewable systems (such as solar PV combined with heat pumps).
Commercial Buildings: To lobby for all new significant commercial buildings including supermarkets to be fitted with renewable systems (such as solar PV combined with heat pumps), and for a programme of retrofitting such systems to existing buildings.
Relaxations in Planning: To lobby for relaxation of planning restrictions on Solar and Wind energy projects in the Stroud District.
Community Energy: To work towards community energy installations - including wind and solar PV - and lobby for greater support for these.
Energy Local Schemes: To lobby for schemes that allow locally generated energy to be shared on a community basis.
Water Sources of Energy: To explore opportunities to generate energy from water including community hydro schemes and water-sourced renewable heat.
Anaerobic Digestion: To explore opportunities for community based anaerobic digestion schemes for process food or other organic waste.
What are the benefits of these projects?
Carbon Reduction: There are direct saving is carbon dioxide emissions by creating local energy production capacity to displace fossil fuel capacity.
Local Economy: There are local jobs possible in the construction and maintenance of renewable energy installations.
Fairness: Executed properly, community energy can be delivered in a way to provide fair options, and eleviate energy poverty.
Health & Wellbeing: Locally run and owned community energy schemes could eleviate the prospect of energy bills escalating, and the stress this causes.
Nature Restoration: The positive impacts are to be felt further afield but are significant (we saw the distress and damage directly caused by the Deepwater Horizon spill, and now, with the Arctic Circle thawing, we are seeing renewed threats to the natural environment)
Resilience: By being more independent, at local scale (and regionally, and nationally), we become more resilient to the energy shocks that periodically have hit us, due to wars and politics in the Middle East and elsewhere.
“By transitioning transportation, heating, and other sectors over to the power grid, the deep decarbonization scenario increases electricity demand relative to the other scenarios by about 25 percent.
The increase in electricity demand gives grid operators more options. Energy storage, in the form of batteries and EVs, allows much of this demand to be “shifted” to times of day when renewables are more plentiful. A grid with more controllable electricity demand can integrate more renewable energy.”
David Roberts, Vox, 7th November 2019 (while this was based on a study for the State of Colorado, the scientists have advised that it would apply equally to the UK; showing only a modest increase in power capacity needed on the grid).
Resources
Quick Bites
Stroud District Council (SDC) will support community energy that has a good business case (1), and Community Energy England provide a great platform for community energy initiatives around the country (2).
Deeper Dives
There is a great deal to learn from what others are doing and plenty of useful resources related to community energy (1, 2) and national plans to get to net-zero (3), and always worth revisiting David Mackay’s book (despite some things changing, like the price-performance of solar, his approach is to teach energy literacy and does so brilliantly) (4).
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