Details of any meetings held and/or forthcoming:
HECA East held its last meeting on 22 March 2017.
It is confirmed that David Walton (Suffolk County Council) has volunteered to undertake the role of ALEO East Chairman for a two-year period. Paul Hinsley, the current Chair, will continue as vice Chair if there are no nominations from members.
The next meeting is scheduled for 22 November 2017, which will be our AGM.
Project updates and regional update
West Suffolk:
The first year anniversary of our ownership of our 12MW solar farm is this month. The site is performing well and generating the predicted output for a site of this size.
We have completed the installation of seven roof-mounted PV installs in Q1 of 17/18 with a total installed capacity of 175kWp. Each installation has a PPA agreement between the council and the building owner/leaseholder
Surprising, we have only received one phone call since the Grenfell fire from home owners who have benefited from government supported EWI in West Suffolk.
Suffolk's LA have completed the ECO Flexible Eligibility Statement of Intent, allowing us to work with the insulation industry to continue energy efficiency improvements within the county.
Epping Forest District Council:
We are planning to send out letters to all households in the District who have an EPC certificate of F or G, in advance of The Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property)(England and Wales) Regulations 2015, which will come into effect from April 2018. We are not 100% certain if the households on the EPC data information are rented or owned, so we are treading a bit carefully at this stage and thinking of all the complications which could arise if we start sending out loads of letters which may not be to the right people!
We are also looking into training for our housing staff regarding Smart Meters so that they can speak to residents knowledgeably.
Suffolk County Council:
ECO Flexible Eligibility:
All of Suffolk’s LAs, working together as part of the Suffolk Climate Change Partnership, have agreed a jointly-worded Statement of Intent and eligibility criteria. Suffolk's Local Authorities wish to utilise Flexible Eligibility to its fullest to help achieve the Partnership’s carbon reduction aims alongside improving the health and wellbeing of their residents. Referrals may come from Suffolk’s Warm Homes Healthy People (WHHP) scheme which has an established referral mechanism for fuel poor households across Suffolk. Referrals come in from the health and social care sectors, voluntary sector and other agencies. Suffolk’s WHHP will provide the central administration and management of ECO flexible eligibility for Suffolk.
The Suffolk Energy Action Energy Efficiency Services Framework is now in place. It consists of five lots:
Lot 1 – Insulation Measures
Lot 2 - Heating and Hot Water Systems
Lot 3 - Renewable Energy Systems
Lot 4 - Park Homes
Lot 5 - Green Deal Assessments
Mini-competitions have either been run or will be run for the above lots; successful bidders will install under the SEA scheme in their allotted areas.
DECC First Time Central Heating Fund:
This has now concluded. £1.6m was secured to deliver up to 274 first time central heating installs to households living in fuel poverty - A total of 214 installations were completed under this scheme, split between gas and oil fired systems with a small number of air source heat pumps. The most commonly replaced heating source were storage heaters, followed by peak electricity, solid fuel and a small number of gas fired room heaters. In total, 277 measures were installed. Of the 214 installations 140 were rural and 74 urban. In terms of energy efficiency improvements, the average EPC prior to installation was 43.2 with post installation being 59.6.
SEA campaign Loft and Cavity Walls 2015-2017:
Working with Aran Services under the Suffolk Energy Action branding, over the past two winters, 951 jobs have been completed to date. There have been 455 loft insulations, 263 for cavity walls, and 233 combined measures.
Future funding:
Funding for domestic energy efficiency projects is actively being sought but currently there appears to be a lack of other opportunities.
Recoup: (One of our Commercial members)
Recoup are about to release a new stand-alone horizontal WWHRS system designed to slide directly under a standard bath or a walk-in shower tray. We are very excited for this product in the residential retrofit and new-build apartment and social housing markets, as it offers a combination of price point, efficiency and ease of installation that has not previously been possible. We are also working with Ofgem with a view to listing this technology within the ECO scheme as a new measure that can be available to ECO-suppliers. This then has the potential to have a significant effect on the cost of hot water for customers in fuel poor homes.
Following our introduction of the product (the Recoup Easyfit+ HE) at CIH 2017 in Manchester last month (and our attendance of the NEA meeting in London also), we have a number of interested developer and social housing providers who have expressed a significant interest in assessing the potential effect of this product as a retrofit/upgrade solution.
We’ve now completed the 3rd party efficiency testing with KIWA, which will be used by BRE to form the product SAP listing (certificates pending). The headline efficiencies are as follows: 47.6% efficiency @ 5.2 l/min; 46.4% efficiency @ 9.2 l/min flow rate.
We have not finalised costing as yet, but the expectation is that it would have a trade list price of c. £425-450 +VAT (inc del.), which is around 40-50% of the price of the current WWHRS integrated tray units (for reference the Tray+DSS-S2 units are 45.8% efficient @9.2l/min).
Below is a preliminary images for reference:
The dimensions are listed below, and the unit (including elevation at one end to provide fall) only requires 85mm clearance.
L = 1170mm (1270mm inc connections)
W = 350mm
H – 65mm (20mm elevation required via adjustable feet, provided)
We anticipate that the Easyfit+ HE will be fully SAP-listed and WRAS certified by the end of July and available from UK stock August/September 2017.
Colchester Borough Council
There are a number of large scale projects progressing at Colchester that include:
- NE Essex Garden Communities
- Northern Gateway – Heat Networks (Jan will update in more detail at the CORE meeting)
General update:
Phase 1 of the new Local Authority Carbon Management Plan is completed and is expected to make an annual saving of 450 tonnes of CO2 (and an estimated annual 100k financial saving)
The Councils GHG report is ready to publish for 2016/17 and suggests CBC has achieved a 55% carbon reduction since 2008 (baseline year)
HECA monitoring process is being updated
CBC held ‘Green Office Week’ in May 2017 for all staff inclusive of those working remotely, this included 25 activities to help staff think about their own impact and working more efficiently.
New project working with 25-30 charity/community groups working on environmental projects to help deliver the Councils Environmental Sustainability Strategy & look at developing a large scale funding application to develop the groups shared resources.
