Agenda item

Members were provided with presentations on the following areas:-

 

Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Housing in Hillingdon

 

The Council’s Energy Efficiency Officer provided Members with details of what the Council was doing in relation to reducing the Carbon Footprint of Housing in the Borough.

 

The key drivers to reduce domestic carbon emissions were:

•        Home Energy Conservation Act (1995) – refreshed guidance issued to LA’s

•        Green Deal

•        Energy Company Obligation

•        Report by Climate Change Committee – ‘Climate Local’

•        New Fuel Poverty Strategy & definition

 

The Committee was made aware of a Fuel Poverty Project which the Council worked in partnership with energy providers on.The Council had bid for £106,500 funding from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

 

Reference was made to the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), which was a new Government led energy savings scheme which was funded by energy suppliers. There was an Energy Company Obligation of £327,000 with a minimum target of achieving 120 heating measures, 10 solid wall insulations, 60 loft and cavity wall insulation and 5 hard to treat cavity wall insulations.

 

The main purpose of ECO was to reduce the amount of carbon emissions and to help reduce fuel poverty.

 

With ECO, Energy Companies were obligated in three ways:

•        Home Heating Cost Reduction Obligation (HHRCO) – This would fund boiler replacements for those on certain benefits but was only for private sector housing. The Council would be looking at finding additional funding for this.

•        Carbon Emission Reduction Obligation (CERO) – This focused on solid wall or hard-to-treat cavity wall insulation and applied to all tenures. This amounted to around £8-10k per property.

•        Carbon Savings Community Obligation (CSCO) – This focused on loft and cavity wall insulation within 15% of the most deprived Lower Super Output areas in the Borough, and applied to all tenures.

 

The Committee was made aware of other initiatives which included:

 

• Training and local job creation – the Council was working with Job Centre Plus, Uxbridge College and Dyson Energy Services. Work was taking place at introducing apprenticeships for young people of the Borough to be employed by those organisations involved in these energy conservation works.
• Green Deal Communities Fund - Members were informed that a new £20 million Green Deal Communities scheme had been introduced by Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to help local authorities drive street-by-street delivery of this scheme. There was a potential for Hillingdon to bid for £1m. The Council would identify target streets and areas in the Borough that could most benefit from the Green Deal, and then offer incentives to households in these areas to encourage them to install energy efficiency home improvements under the Green Deal. The Council would propose incentives as part of their bids for funding, which would be assessed by DECC.
• Warmth 4 Winter – The Council was working with local partners to reduce excess winter deaths amongst the most vulnerable residents.
• Council Housing – The Council was accessing ECO funding for solid wall insulation.
• A Steering Group would be set up to develop a Strategic Action Plan for energy efficiency and affordable warmth.

 

Reference was made to the typical lifetime carbon saving per measure:-

• Solid wall insulation = 44.4 tonnes of carbon
• Cavity wall insulation = 27.6 tonnes of carbon
• Loft Insulation = 4.8 tonnes of carbon
• Gas boiler replacement = 6 tonnes of carbon

 

The Committee was provided with a graph which provided details of the carbon saved by measure and the funding spent to achieve this (3,086 tonnes of carbon saved). This proved that with a relatively small pot of funding the Council, on behalf of its residents, could potentially unlock a lot of funding.   

 

Discussion took place on the publicity for ECO and Members were informed that there a national advertising campaign had taken place. The Council had also publicised the scheme through its public website, through Hillingdon People and at numerous community events.

 

Street Lighting and Illuminated signs

 

The Committee was informed that the Borough’s street lighting, illuminated signs and CCTV was projected to consume 10,388,332 Kwh of electricity in 2013/14 financial year which would produce an estimated 5,620 tonnes of carbon. This would be from 23,300 street lights, 4,800 illuminated signs, bollards and zebra crossing and from lighting in 12 subways and under passes in the Borough.

 

Members were provided with a variety of current activities relating to energy saving and the reduction of on going maintenance costs. These included work on Zebra Crossing Beacons and associated spot lights, LED lanterns for lighting on residential roads, the use of electronic ballasts for discharge lamps and illuminated bollards.

 

In relation to illuminated bollards Members were informed of the initiative brought about by the Department for Transport, whereby “keep left” signs on bollards were now unnecessary. Provided there was no confusion these could now be replaced with plain reflectorised bollards. This provided an obvious energy saving.

 

Reference was made to the replacement of Thermal Photoelectric photo cells with electronic units of street lights. Members were informed that electronic photo cells reduced the length of time that street lights were on (50 hours per annum) compared with thermal cells. Electronic photo cells were used on all new installations and would replace any thermal cells that failed for the last fifteen years.

 

The Committee was informed that an energy saving option could be the replacement of old street lanterns on residential roads with new LED lanterns, utilising the existing columns. Much of the existing lighting on residential roads was currently low sodium, which produced an orange monochromatic light that did not allow colours to be seen. This was a very efficient light source but the light was poorly controlled and contributed to sky glow. Many of the lanterns were showing wear and tear which reduced their efficiency. Members were informed that it would be possible to replace these old lanterns with modern LED lanterns and that this had been carried out at a few locations to provide lighting improvements where new traffic calming schemes were built, however, the savings were relatively small compared to the investment. This would typically result in a payback period in excess of 20 years.

 

The Committee was informed that with 13,000 of these types of lights within the Borough, the lantern replacement would cost around £350-400 per column, which would be a total cost of £4.5m (65,000 kwh per annum or £6,045 and 35 tonnes carbon saving). The Committee noted that this would be prohibitive.

 

Another initiative which could be used was profiled lighting on traffic routes. This was whereby the lighting levels and uniformity of the lighting for street lighting on traffic routes was determined by the average daily traffic flow.

 

A detailed analysis of the hourly traffic flow data for various sections of road could be carried out and it could be possible to reduce the level of lighting at the times when there was less traffic. This would reduce the energy consumption and produce a carbon reduction. For this to happen, the control gear in each lantern would have to be replaced with dimmable units and a method of controlling the dimmer function either through a central control system or at each unit.

 

Members expressed an interest in having additional information on profiled or part night lighting in residential areas. It was noted that where new lighting had been installed in residential areas, the lanterns did have the facility to be dimmed at various times of the night. This would involve the installation of an additional control unit to enable the dimming to take place.

 

Using Development Planning to Reduce the Carbon Footprint

 

The Council’s Principal Sustainability Officer provided a paper which informed Members that the Council had been implementing the London Plan requirements for carbon reductions in new development.  Until 1 October 2013 these required new major development to reduce emissions by 25% from building regulations (minimum standard). However, from 1 October 2013 all new major development must demonstrate a 40% reduction in CO2. Members were informed that this would prove a difficult target for all developers to achieve.

 

The Committee was informed that where a developer could not achieve the savings onsite, the Council would ask for offsite contributions via Section 106 (i.e. developer funds).  This would then enable the Council to make carbon reductions elsewhere. 

 

Members were provided with examples of what work had been carried out to ensure developments met the 40% target with off site contributions. Particular reference was made to the Council’s School Building Programme which had saved £100k and ensured improvements to inefficient buildings      

 

The Committee expressed an interest in the concept of   Decentralised Energy and the sharing heat and power and reference was made to the three possible areas this could work:-

 

• A heat network connecting Hillingdon Hospital, Brunel University and the Civic Centre, including housing in between, and the wider Uxbridge town centre. 

 

• A proposed network in Hayes connecting new developments. The network would need a catalyst and source for the initial combined heat and power unit to serve a new network.  Discussions were taking place on identifying a development to act as a catalyst.

 

• The use of rejected heat from Colnbrook Power station near Heathrow, to service a new heat and power network along Bath Road. 

 

Urban greening and Off-setting work

 

Reference was made to the carbon off-setting work (carbon sinks) which was taking place through the planning system.  It was recognised that the plantation of more trees in the north of Borough would be a useful method of providing more carbon sinks.  However, of more benefit would be the planting of more trees in the south of the Borough as this area suffered some harmful air quality and was acknowledged that vegetation not only removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but also other harmful emissions such as those from transportation. 

 

The Council’s Green Spaces, Sport and Leisure Senior Manager provided the Committee with additional information on the tree planting which took place in the Borough. In the last planting season (November - March) the Council planted 704 street and roadside trees.

 

Members were informed that the amount of Carbon a tree would offset depended on a number of factors, such as the type of tree, where it was planted and the amount of room it had to grow. On average, one broad leaf tree would absorb in the region of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide during its full life-time (approximately 100 years).  Therefore with an estimated 16,000 trees planted alongside the Borough’s roads and highways this would absorb around 16,000 tons of carbon.

 

Members thanked officers for their presentations and asked for  the following further information and possible future witnesses for future meetings:- 

 

• Further information on profile or part night lighting in residential areas and the feasibility of doing this.
• How could the ECO initiative be better communicated to residents from the Council?
• What could the Council do to broker the best energy deals for residents?
• Decentralised Energy: Sharing Heat and Power - The Committee asked for more information on the proposed network connecting Hillingdon Hospital, Brunel University and the Civic Centre.
• Decentralised Energy: Sharing Heat and Power - In addition the feasibility on using Council facilities such as Highgrove Pool and the Crematorium.  
• The Committee asked for information on details of the Council’s vehicle fleet and what measures were being taken to reduce carbon.
• Electric Vehicles Charging Points – the use of these within the Borough
• Procurement – What was the Council doing to ensure that contracts the Council were involved in were carbon friendly? Details on the new strategy which the Council had in place for the buying of energy
• Looking at best practise in the private sector which could be applied to this Council.

 

RESOLVED –

 

1.      That the information provided as part of the witness session be noted and form part of the evidence for the review.

2.      That officers be asked to undertake the actions outlined above for the next and future meetings of this Committee.