Great news from the Isle of Eigg in the Scottish Highlands – a community scheme has been awarded 300k by Lottery funding body NESTA in recognition of the work done to transform their community into a low carbon environment.
The project has seen 38 families combine their efforts in an attempt to halve their carbon emissions.
Led by the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, the initiative involves a wide range of projects from installing insulation and solar panels to producing local food and developing low-carbon community transport.
They are attempting to live within a five kilowatt (kW)/household energy cap. In giving the award, Nesta said that Eigg cut CO2 emissions in the past year by an amazing 32%.
Congratulations to all involved in this project, hopefully this award will enable more breakthroughs in the future.
The Isle of Eigg scheme was the only winner from Scotland, the other two winners were The Green Valleys project in Brecon Beacons, Wales and the Energy Service in Ludlow.
We have had the car scrappage scheme, window’s scrappage scheme and now we have the boiler scrappage scheme. It all sounds a bit like a joke but I have to take my hat of to the government for this one.
Homes in England can get a £400 discount when buying a brand new boiler if their old one meets the set criteria. Two sets of winners in this one. People with households who have old boilers – that are not environmentally friendly, and most of all, our planet. Once again this single movement will not save us from the threat of global warming but it is another step in the right direction.
There should be more than 125,000 households that will benefit from the scheme should they decide to take up the offer. Homeowners and landlords will benefit the most from the scrappage schemeas. For social landlords and housing associations it is bad luck as they do not qualify for the scheme, they are already obligated to provide sufficient services that keep in line with reducing carbon emission targets.
To qualify for the £400 discount the household owner will need to have a G-rated boiler that is in a working condition. If the homeowner is over the age of 60 then they will still qualify if the boiler does not work.
This is an opportunity not to be missed. Very unlucky if your boiler is broken though.
As we would say in Scotland, an ‘almighty rammy’ has predicatably broken out over the decision by the Scottish Government to give the go-ahead to the building of a 137 mile power line connecting Beauly in the North of the country to Denny (near Falkirk) in Central Scotland.
This has been a rather confusing one for the eco-conscious – which is the bigger issue long-term climate change? or preserving the physical landscape? – interestingly, Friends of the Earth came down on the side of Climate Change, arguing that the effects of this were potentially much greater than that of constructing the power lines.
It is also being argued strongly by some that possible alternatives such as underground or undersea lines were not given adequate consideration during the planning process.
But there we have it, the decision has been made and Scotland is going to have to live with it.
What are your thoughts on the Beauly – Denny issue?
I think that it’s safe to say that the Copenhagen Summit didn’t exactly go as planned. The entire two week period seemed to lurch from one disagreement/misunderstanding to another, culminating in a chaotic final few hours where a non-binding volunatry agreement was “agreed”.
The fallout from these negotiations continues to spill out through the newspapers and blogs.
The upshot of it all is that not one party can be satisfied with the outcome.
The Climate change advcates are extremely disapponited with the outcome
The sceptics are a little happier, but are still left with the fact that most parties actually do believe that climate change is a scientific reality
Governments of the “rich” developed EU countries are unhappy that stronger targets could not be agreed
The superpowers of China, USA and India were hamstrung by political infighting
UK tried hard – Ed Milliband says so……….
It was all quite sad really, there seemed to be a lack of focus in the negotiations as a whole. Are these big international conferences really the right environment to get “deals” such as these done? Questions must be asked surely.
UK Energy company Britsh Gas has launched an app for the iPhone that allows you to monitor your home energy usage. Unfortunatley, we haven’t managed to get our hands on it to test it. From the blurb on the website it appears to be simply a case of submitting your meter reading and getting an accurate bill. If this app proves successful, it will be interesting to see if other major energy suppliers respond with their own apps – this could be a potentially interesting area. We have however seen some comments which highlight that this apps process is not as simple as its made out to be.
Do you have the British Gas iPhone App installed yet? What are you thoughts!?………….
As we are a green electricity site most of our posts and articles, as interesting they maybe are about rising energy prices, how to save money and energy, global warming, climate change and what we are doing to save the planet of an unprecedented apocalypse. Today I thought it would be a nice change to go on about one of the great visual electrical phenomenon’s our great planet has to offer.
The Northern Lights.
From October through to March you can catch a glimpse of the northern lights in Iceland. This particular picture taken over the town of Borgarfjord caught my attention just like it will catch yours. Like something out of Halloween, the small church has an electrical cross above its door complimenting the green skies above. This magnificent glow lit up the skies for more than 3 hours.
What are the Northern Lights?
Northern Lights is a common name for the Aurora Borealis, named after the Roman goddess of dawn. The lights are created when our star “the sun” fires of particles that hit the earth’s natural force field creating these beautiful green and sometimes red electrical light shows.
Worried about your gas, electric and water bills and whether you’re wasting energy in your home?
A new program from the city of Fresno’s Planning and Development Department can help. It’s a new thing called the energy survey programme where basically they scan all areas of your house with an infra red device to see where the energy is escaping from your house. Not only is this a remarkable tool but saves you hundreds on your energy bill’s and also great news for the planet.
This plan is the outcome of a $4.6 million Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. More than 2,800 communities received grants in March to help reduce energy use and fossil fuel emissions. Visalia also gained money for a program that’s similar. Madera is interested in learning more from Fresno’s program.
There’s one slight problem, only homes prior to 1998 are contacted for this, if your home was built after 1998, the Title 24 California building code required energy efficiency standards. Inspectors use high-tech infrared cameras and various other tools to conduct thermal scans inside and out the home to determine where theheat is escaping the house. It generally takes an hour and half to two hours.
It’s thought that windows would be the main escape route for heat but after carrying out surveys inspectors are starting to notice different areas of the house are just as bad and maybe even worse especially around ceiling ducks.
This seems like a great opportunity for the public to save on energy and get there sky high bills down to an affordable price, and is also can great news for the planets global warming problems.
In line with the Scottish Goverment’s recent announcement that it was investing in a Scottish and Southern Energy and University of Strathclyde project Centre for Renewable Energy Excellence (CEERE) in Glasgow – the Welsh Government has come out and backed a similar scheme. The Low Carbon Research Institute (LCRI). This is a Welsh university research project led by the Cardiff University’s School of Architecture.
This intriguing project aims to help businesses in Wales develop innovative carbon reduction projects and meet strict carbon emission targets.
If truth be told there are a number of these consumer representative organisations out there – all undertaking extremely worthy work and research in order to keep the energy firms on their toes and save us a bit of cash on our cheaper gas and electrcity bills. However, by far the most comprehensive and sensible of these websites that we have seen is that of the Energy Retail Association (ERA).
Their website contains a wealth of information covering the entire gamut of the energy retail experience. Amongst the topics covered are:
Energy supply complaints – how to deal with them
Helping customers with energy efficiency – what does all the jargon mean? (Atlantic have a cheaper gas and electricity page on this)
Services for vulnerable customers – don’t worry help is at hand, you just need to know where to look!
New code of practice for customer billing
Preventing disconnection
Switching Supplier – the quickets and easiest methods
New technology – Smart meters
Independent code for doorstep sales practice
All of the information is presented in a very easy to read manner – we were impressed. ERA also undertake research into all aspects of the UK energy insustry. Their recent findings include that 32% of UK households are not even aware of the existence of the smart metering programme.
