2010
Individuals
- Carbon footprint calculation, wireless home electricity meters & Smart meters gain popularity as self-assessment gets a grip on householders. Rising energy bills are met with major reductions in domestic use. Computers are being switched off twice as often as before. Fridges are having their heat exchangers dusted.
- Smart Energy demonstration street in Totnes self selects as part of major retrofit initiative. All houses will be fully insulated, all light bulbs will be low energy, every roof will carry both Solar PV and Solar HW and one house is to be fitted with under-floor heating generated by a heat pump.
- Sales of pyjamas and Long Johns increase as people invest in clothing to cut heating bills.
- Totnes Men’s Probus Society organise a visit to Plymouth University Energy from Algae trials.
Community
- Phase One at ATMOS features a photovoltaic roof, installed by Totnes-based Beco Solar1, who operate out of Totnes Industrial Estate.
- Work begins on TRESOC’s hydro scheme on the weir in Totnes.
- Department of Communities and Local Government give a grant to TRESOC to fund their planning work and set-up costs.
- KEVICC installs a woodchip boiler to replaces its defunct gas boiler. Also installed is energy monitoring software that tracks electricity and gas use in real time and heat production from the biomass boiler. This is accessible on the intranet, and can be used for teaching purposes. Public display meters in Reception and other parts of the college allow the energy status to become readily visible. The school is delighted with its new energy system, and plans to do the same for the new school buildings it is designing.
- The Western Morning News re-assesses its strong anti position on wind turbines, announcing that its new position will be to be supportive of wind development, providing developments are not excessive in scale, and that some element of community ownership is involved”. It runs an editorial praising the TRESOC application as demonstrating ‘best practice for wind”.
Policy Makers & Service Providers
- The Department of Energy and Climate Change make available the new feed-in tariffs, which, for the first time, mean that homeowners generating electricity through micro-renewables (wind, solar) are paid more for that electricity than they pay the grid for energy. For householders across Totnes and District it becomes a more attractive investment to put money into installing photovoltaics than to put it into pensions.
- 50 photovoltaic systems are installed in Totnes within the first 9 months after feed-in tariffs are introduced.
- Local PV and micro-wind industry undergoes a period of intense strain, then rapid expansion providing plentiful skilled employment in Totnes (Beco) and throughout Devon. Support from RE4D helps industry through the strain and provides much training through expansion phase giving Devon micro-renewables industry massive advantage relative to other counties. Devon becomes an industry leader.
- SHDC agrees to reduce the number of streetlights by 30% and replace 25% of those remaining with PV lights as a phased in changeover for all lights.
- The Planning Inspectorate holds a planning appeal into SHDC’s refusal of TRESOC’s application for a wind turbine near Totnes. The inspector rules in favour of the application, over-ruling a small but high profile opposition campaign, arguing in his ruling that “at times of national insecurity, where ensuring future energy supply is the national priority, initiatives such as this, which has succeeded in raising £500,000 from the local community, and the benefits of which go back into the community, are desperately needed and absolutely vital”.
Footnotes
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