AECB News

The GreenGauge Homes project in Lingwood, Norfolk, was honoured at the CPRE Norfolk Awards last week. 

This scheme of 15 eco-friendly affordable homes incorporates the latest construction and energy technologies to provide housing at just 5% above the price of Housing Corporation standard homes and offer significant savings in running costs for tenants. The homes are being monitored by the University of East Anglia.

Martin Aust, business growth director at Flagship Housing Group said, “Flagship is committed to environmental sustainability, reducing the carbon ‘footprint’ new homes leave on our environment.  This project is utilising different types of renewable energy technologies which makes this an exciting project to monitor.”

Roger Gilles of Architects Barefoot & Gilles said, ‘We have designed these homes to be like a home any of us would be familiar with, but with the benefits of the latest technologies. The houses are energy efficient, cheap to run and, I hope, a pleasure to live in.’

Martin Walton, Chairman of the Judges said, “CPRE Norfolk is keen to encourage the provision of social housing in rural settings, where a need has been demonstrated. This is a pioneering scheme which proves that social housing and ecological design can work in harmony.”

Special guest Bill Bryson, president of the CPRE, paid tribute to the quality of the projects awarded, adding: “As a lover of the Norfolk countryside I am enthralled by the range of projects in my home county that have contributed so much. They highlight the efforts of hundreds of people - those working on a professional basis and those that treasure unspoilt countryside around them.”

The Lingwood scheme has already become a community and this impressed the CPRE Judges. There are other schemes in the pipline; GreenGauge homes are also being planned in the Norfolk village of Horstead. To find out more about GreenGauge homes visit http://bit.ly/GreenGuage

The National Housing Federation in partnership with CPRE released figures this year exposing the scale of the rural housing crisis.  Over the last five years, the number of people waiting for an affordable home in country areas has soared by 37%, up from 507,757 in 2003 to 695,735 last year.


About Greengauge Homes
GreenGauge is a cost-effective approach to building sustainable, affordable housing that can improve on government guidance on energy efficiency and still be built within the Housing Corporation’s Standard Grant Funding Structure. This scheme of 15 timber framed GreenGauge Homes in Lingwood, Norfolk is the first to be completed.

Affordable housing needs to be reproduceable, to prioritise low running costs, and promote practical, sustainable energy use to tenants. So rather than reinvent the wheel, the GreenGauge Partnership has developed a system of tried and tested energy saving and generation technologies to suit a variety of locations and layouts.

The University of East Anglia is monitoring the thermal performance of the technologies in use at Lingwood, which include sun space and heat recovery, ground source heat pumps, solar collectors and PVs and a ‘control’ group of superinsulated gas centrally heated houses. Each home is has a user interface to illustrate the energy savings.

The GreenGauge Partners are Flagship Housing Group, Barefoot & Gilles, Broadland District Council, Lingwood Parish Council, Oxbury & Company, University of East Anglia, Victory Housing Trust and Youngs Homes.

For further information about GreenGauge Homes please contact
Su Butcher at Barefoot & Gilles www.barefootgilles.com

I was sent this earlier today. Should AECB demand that the government stops labelling heat pumps as renewable energy and thereby misleading consumers?

David.




25 June, 2008

By Michael Willoughby

'Dirty' power needed in cold snaps

Councils are over-estimating the carbon savings gained by installing ground,
air and water source heat pump technology, experts have warned.

Local authorities which require a Merton-style minimum percentage of
renewable energy generation on new builds are being misled by the industry
because heat pumps consume lot of National Grid electricity in cold weather.

³[Suppliers] coming into the UK market Sdon¹t have much track record of
supplying the market,² said Sean Rendall, principal policy officer at Woking
Borough Council.

³They claim their systems meet and exceed requirements in renewable energy.
But while you can achieve good figures in terms of renewable energy input in
Kw hours the carbon saving is considerably less.²

Many planning officers muddle up energy use and CO2 emissions, added
Rendall, who is strategy director for ECSC¹s C Plan software, an energy tool
for planners.

Heat pumps tend to be specified for heating instead of gas boilers, which
are increasingly energy efficient. The pumps, a form of compressor, are
frequently advertised as offering 3 or 4:1 energy efficiency ratios (COP).

But in cold weather, this can drop to 1.5:1 COP, Rendall claimed. While
energy efficiency gains are still made, the increased power comes from the
National Grid, only 1.5% of which comes from renewable sources. Therefore,
heat pumps are relatively inefficient in terms of CO2 emissions. In other
parts of Europe with a better renewables mix (carbon index) the sums are
different.

But Robert Meeks of installers, ICE Energy Pumps, disputed the figures,
adding that he only expected 1% of an overall yearly heating bill to come
from additional heating. His system is designed to work to -3 Centigrade
without additional top-up, he said.

³This is to ignore the overall picture that, during the year, in total the
COP has averaged over 4 COP and saved 50% of the CO2 emissions of any gas
boiler.²

Meeks added that imminent additional of renewable power into the grid, such
as 28GM of wind turbines, would mean additional CO2 emissions from heat
pumps would be Odwarfed¹ by those of gas boilers, even if those hit 100%
efficiency.

Energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, recently announced that planning rules would
be relaxed to allow heat pumps to be installed without requirement for
consent, effectively adding them to the list of renewable technologies.

The govt seems to have admitted in its Eco Towns policy that the so called ZC by 2016 target is a fiction.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/29/eaeco129.xml

David.

DESIGN & BUILD OF THE SUSCON ECO-IMPRESSION CENTRE, Ebbsfleet, Thames Gateway

Dear AECB members - Kent County Council is asking for Expresssion of Interests for the Design & Build Tender (subject to final DCLG CLG funding confirmation and planning process) for the SusCon Eco-Impression Centre, a state-of-the-art 'temporary' building to operate as a sustainable construction skills training and demonstration/visitor centre near to Ebbsfleet Intl Stn in North kent. For more details see:

http://kent.gov.uk/business/support-services-and-advice/property-group/expressions-of-interest.htm

Amusing Guardian piece:

A new Msc in 'Sustainable Futures' is currently beinf proposed at the Scott Sutherland School, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. It is hoped to have it up and running by October 2008.
Aim: to create the thinking, awareness and analysis tools to continuously develop and challenge the methodologies and received wisdom for creating sustainable housing. The development of communities will be examined in a broader context to the more technical solutions of the physical built environment.  The course is designed to address the shortage of skills in this area, which has been identified by professional bodies. there will probably be a residential element at Findhorn Foundation.
Visit the website to find out more http://www.rgu.ac.uk/sss/courses/page.cfm?pge=44675

Join The Environmental Transport Association (ETA) And Help The AECB At The Same Time

Why the ETA?

They are the only motoring organisation to campaign for a sustainable transport system, 98% of members would recommend it to their friends. The average waiting time is 40 minutes and 80% of breakdowns are fixed at the roadside.

The AECB ETA affinity Number is '1387 affinity', your members need to quote this number when calling to ensure they receive their discount (3 months free breakdown cover and ETA membership).

For more information please ring 0845 389 1010, email eta@eta.co.uk or visit www.eta.co.uk.

The AECB understands the importance of making accurate projections of energy use and the resultant CO2 emissions at the design stage of any building. It concluded, reluctantly, that it would have to recommend the use of PHPP rather than SAP for those planning to work to the AECB energy standards. AECB, with NES, has now commissioned consultants to undertake a line-by-line comparison of the two software programmes, the results of which will be shared at an invite only workshop to be hosted by the Home Builders Federation at the end of January.

AECB was delighted that the Commission for the Built Environment and EST both expressed an interest in joining the CLP advisory board. Representatives of both organisations attended the third meeting of the board on 12 September. Both made valuable contributions in explaining what their own organisations are doing that is consistent with and complementary to the CLP.

Liz Reason, Director of the CLP, is to speak at a CABE Lunch 'n Learn session in early January.