Community Energy Literature Review

  The cost of meeting the UK’s net zero greenhouse gas target has been estimated by the Climate Change Committee “on conservative assumptions” at “up to 1-2% of GDP” in the years to 2050, when the annual cost would reach about £50 billion (CCC, 2020). The gross domestic product of the UK has been estimated for 2020 as “1.96 trillion British pounds, a fall of approximately 216 billion pounds compared to 2019” (Statista, 2021).  Fiona Harvey wrote in The Guardian that the “UK pensions sector accounts for about £2.6tn in funds” and noted the potential influence of these funds on investment and business should they invest in “lower-carbon portfolios” (Harvey, 2021). In view of the size of pension funds, it is not surprising that some pressure groups have sought to influence the ways in which they are invested. One such group is Make My Money Matter which describes itself as “a people-powered campaign fighting for a world where we all know where our pension money goes, and whe...

          According to the International Energy Agency, “50% of global final energy consumption in 2018” was used in heating, contributing 40% of global CO2 emissions (IEA, 2019). Just under half of the heat “was consumed in buildings for space and water heating and, to a lesser extent, for cooking”. These figures help to explain the interest in retrofitting existing buildings to improve their thermal efficiency. The process can be difficult and expensive, and a variety of approaches has been taken. In the work outlined below, the role of software will be given particular attention. Foda,   El-Hamalawi and Le Dréau (2020) describe “a computational analysis taking a French single family house as a case study” using dynamic thermal modelling to find the optimum balance between annual energy saving and the cost of standardised retrofit measures available on the French market. The house had four occupants; was detached and typical of those built before 1974...

    According to the Corporate Finance Institute, a carbon offset “refers to the units earned by firms that have implemented a greenhouse gases reduction project. It is issued by a board or government authority, and one offset credit is given for every ton of greenhouse gas that is reduced, stored, or avoided.” These offsets may then be sold “to an investor, government, or NGO to offset their emissions or for investment purposes.” The market for such offsets “enables private investors, governments, non-governmental organizations, and businesses to voluntarily purchase carbon offsets to offset their emissions. The largest category of buyers comprises private firms that purchase carbon offsets for resale or investment” (CFI, 2021). Blaufelder et al., (2020) claim that “Natural climate solutions (NCS), a category including project types such as reforestation, avoided deforestation, improved forest management, and agroforestry, have grown faster than any other project catego...

The UK Government’s Green Homes Grant scheme (GOV.UK, 2020) may have had some success in that it motivated some home owners to think about how they would make energy improvements to their homes if they could find a suitable contractor and received a grant.   One of the measures included in the scheme was the installation of a heat pump, of either the ground or air source type. Within the scheme these devices were classified as low carbon heat measures, and were subject to additional requirements. One was that a “minimum level of insulation is recommended to ensure the proper design and operation of the relevant technology in line with relevant standards” and another that all “heat pump systems must have a minimum Seasonal Performance Factor (SPF) of 2.5.” Ofgem (2021) defines the SPF as “a measure of the operating performance of an electric heat pump heating system over a year. It is the ratio of the heat delivered to the total electrical energy supplied over the year.” Ofgem exp...

                                                                                 Some of the issues surrounding carbon tax are introduced in a short factsheet from the International Transport Worker’s Federation (ITF, n.d.). Carbon taxes are described as a ‘market solution’ intended to reduce CO2 emissions by making it more expensive to produce them. An example of how this might work is that fossil fuel companies would be taxed on the basis of their emissions, and would then pass the cost on to their customers, resulting in reduced consumption of the goods and services the companies provide. The main argument advanced against carbon tax is that the poor would suffer most from price increases, for example in the cost of heating, while the behaviour of wealthier people might well be ...

    The term carbon footprint can apply to a single event, such as a journey, but often refers to the greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced by an individual or organisation in a complete year, resulting from factors such as travel, diet, and the use of goods and energy. Carbon footprints can be estimated using a carbon calculator, and the resulting figure is typically given in equivalent tonnes of carbon dioxide (tCO2e). Many online calculators will also suggest that the user buys carbon offsets based on the size of the carbon footprint calculated; for example, informed of an economy return flight from London to New York, one calculator stated that 1.8 t CO2 had been produced, and that this could be offset by a payment of £42 to “carbon offset projects in developing and newly industrialising countries”. Carbon offsets for the individual will be the main topic of this post. Emissions of greenhouse gas depend not only an individual’s lifestyle, but on geographical and temporal ...