Local energy production and local energy supply

According to the Wales Fuel Poverty Projection Tool released in 2013, 31% of social housing tenants in Wales still lived in fuel poverty in 2012. This equates to 70,000 households, which is a rise of 6% from 2008 indicators. Tenants living in housing association properties have been affected significantly by rising fuel bills, benefit changes and the ‘bedroom tax’. High energy prices in Wales are compounded by the energy inefficiency of Welsh housing and lack of access to mains gas in rural areas. Furthermore, many social housing tenants in Wales are using prepayment meters to pay for their gas and electricity bills, which can mean that they end up paying more for their energy needs.

Taking these factors into account, along with the recent changes outlined in the UK Government’s summer budget, any opportunity which offers the potential of increasing household budgets as well as raising income for HAs, needs to be explored. Exploring the potential for local energy production and local energy supply is one of those opportunities.

CHC is holding a ‘Local energy production and local energy supply’ event in Cardiff on September 30th to explore these opportunities. Many organisations feel that we need to address the market failure impacting on low income households and we need to impact fuel poverty directly through price. There is a significant and growing appetite to intervene directly in the energy market, as outlined in a “Non-traditional business models: Supporting transformative change in the energy market” event recently run by Ofgem and Welsh Government. Feedback from this event will be provided at CHC’s event.

Examples of non-traditional business models include community energy projects which share an emphasis on community ownership, leadership or control where the community benefits, as well as ‘Energy Service Companies business models’, which include financing, designing, building, operating and maintaining small-to-medium scale demand management and/or low carbon energy projects, as part of either energy service contracts or energy performance contracts.

Following updates from Ofgem and Welsh Government, ‘Our Power’ will provide an update on their activity at the event. ‘Our Power’ is a new independent energy supply company and the first in the UK to operate on a non-profit distributing basis. It plans to sell heat and power to tenants in 200,000 homes across Scotland by 2020. This agenda item will be the longest session on the day, providing an opportunity to hear about Our Power’s journey so far and any potential for collaboration with the sector in Wales.

Before concluding the event with a ‘next steps’ discussion, a range of organisations will get an opportunity to outline their services and project work in relation to local energy production. Part of this includes local energy production through renewable energy systems. People in Wales have amongst the second highest electricity bills in Great Britain, which is largely due to Wales’ energy infrastructure and higher distribution costs faced by consumers in Wales.

A fair deal on distribution costs is needed for Welsh consumers. Part of this deal is the need to improve the capacity and infrastructure of the national grid with regards to installing renewable energy systems amongst other benefits. There is great potential for renewable energy in Wales and, alongside this, we need to consider the potential for energy storage, smart grids and other technological advances. Such projects can have significant social, environmental and economic benefits for housing associations, tenants and communities.

To book your place on CHC’s event on 30th September, please click here.


Shea Jones
Energy and Sustainability Officer

CHC's first ever Safety Summit - save the date!

Community Housing Cymru is holding its first Safety Summit on Wednesday 3 June which hosts a range of speakers and networking opportunities in a one-day summit event. The event has a particular focus on fire safety and health and safety following CHC’s decision to bring together its fire safety and health and safety groups for this summit.

A wide range of topic areas will be covered throughout the day via workshops and main sessions. Since the fire safety group was set up back in 2012, a key focus of the meeting has been high risk accommodation and debate over fire risk assessments in terms of what fire safety guidance applies to what types of accommodation. CHC is therefore delighted that Mark Andrews from the London Fire Brigade and Chief Fire Officers Association is able to attend the summit and give an update on the high risk accommodation project that he has been a part of. As well as technical and operational information provided throughout the day, delegates can hear key policy updates on subjects such as the Domestic Fire Safety Regulations 2013, the Construction (Design and Management) regulations 2015 and more.

Workshop sessions will cover topics such as occupational health, asbestos management, legionella, practical application of fire risk assessments. Furthermore, a range of surgeries will be held throughout the day in which delegates can have one to one discussions on subjects such as electrical safety and fire safety. There will also be plenty of opportunities throughout the day to engage with a wide range of exhibitors at the summit.

CHC will be promoting the use of Twitter on the day so that delegates can get involved in discussions online - please use the #safetysummit15 hashtag.

You can book your place here.

Shea Jones

Energy and Sustainability Officer

Legislation a chance to tackle fuel poverty

Shea Jones has blogged for IWA on the Well Being of Future Generations Bill... 

How do you picture how our planet will look in the future and how future generations will live on our planet in years to come? Some people might think about hoverboards, power laces and all the other exciting things that we see Marty McFly involved in during the classic ‘Back to the Future’ films. Admittedly, I do think about this when I think about the future but I also think about the bigger picture – how we treat the planet now and how we must do what we can to ensure that we do not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This includes using natural resources reasonably, ensuring that life is not negatively impacted by harmful modifications of the ecosystems and that scientific and technological progress in all fields do not harm life on Earth.

Fuel poverty (defined as households spending 10% or more of their income on energy costs) affected 30% of households in Wales in 2012 and is now likely to be significantly higher. Fuel poverty is a significant cause of excess winter deaths and in 2013/14, there were 1,100 excess winter deaths in Wales. The majority (73%) were over the age of 75 (we know that around 30% of these deaths can be attributed to cold homes). Low incomes, energy prices and the number of energy inefficient properties act as the main contributory factors to rising levels of fuel poor households and they make the eradication of fuel poverty a real challenge.

Despite much welcomed investment from energy efficiency programs such as Arbed, the current investment in Wales is insufficient given the scale of the problem. Estimates in a Bevan report on poverty states that it will take 78 years for the Welsh Government’s Nest programme to reach each and every home suffering from fuel poverty in Wales. More needs to be done to ensure that vulnerable households are paying the lowest possible price for their home energy needs.

Housing is responsible for around one fifth of Welsh greenhouse gas emissions. WWF Cymru’s report, ‘Cutting carbon emissions in Welsh homes’, showed that targeting home improvements at the poorest quality houses in Wales would slash energy bills, cut fuel poverty by 40%, reduce our impact on climate change and create thousands of jobs. This would take us well on our way to meeting our climate emission reduction targets of 40% by 2020. Reducing our energy usage and delivering energy efficiency programmes needs to happen alongside switching to renewable / low carbon energy sources, as outlined in WWF’s report ‘Warm Homes Not Warm Words’, although barriers to renewable energy (e.g. the planning system) need to be addressed and Wales needs further energy powers to be devolved for energy planning consents.

A large scale energy efficiency programme much bigger than what we currently have is essentially sustainable development in action. How could this be financed? There have been suggestions of using borrowing powers for energy efficiency programmes rather than funding controversial stretches of motorways, for example. Perhaps a less controversial way to boost investment would be to fund more energy efficiency retrofit works, as well as the amount of energy that we generate through renewable technologies via infrastructure investments through the Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan (WIIP). Of course, we need to maximise the positive impacts of investment and the Welsh Government’s Well-being of Future Generations Bill, if designed effectively, provides an ideal opportunity to achieve this. Infrastructure investments should be benchmarked for their environmental impact and WIIP provides a significant opportunity to ensure that large capital projects fulfil sustainable development criteria at every level from carbon impact to community benefit.

A strong and effective Well-being of FG Act should make sure that investment from public bodies has real positive impacts and ensures that all purchasing decisions are made with consideration of wider benefits for people and nature, in Wales and around the world. ARBED has shown how a programme can be designed to deliver real benefits to local economies. Evidence suggests that, without an explicit legal requirement, it is unlikely that good-practice procurement policy will be implemented and inconsistencies will continue. Community Housing Cymru’s member organisations (housing associations) spent an estimated £1,027m in 2013/14, and £823.6m (80%) of this spend was retained in Wales. Of the completed Community Benefits Measurement Tools returned to Welsh Government, 52% have come from the housing sector.

However, we propose that further work is done to develop the community benefits tool into a legal requirement that ensures public bodies consider the broader environmental, social and economic impact of their procurement activities. We should promote ethical, fair trade and sustainable procurement practices through the Bill which meet the social justice and equality needs of the citizens of Wales. This includes the impacts of supply chains in Wales and abroad and the ability to use local suppliers and installers, which is key to keeping money in the Welsh economy. For example, i2i’s Can Do Toolkit provides guidance to social landlords to help them achieve added value and wider social inclusion through their improvement and investment programmes, in the areas of targeted recruitment and training and SME-friendly procurement. Between September 2008 and December 2011, i2i calculated that this work led to the creation of 2,581 job and training opportunities. The CHC Group supports the continued development of the Can Do Toolkit and its extended application across the public sector in Wales.

Prevention and integration principles clearly need to be at the heart of the Wellbeing of FG Bill. For example, ‘Boiler prescription’ schemes exist in England whereby housing associations install boilers in households prescribed by GPs. One of these schemes has resulted in savings to the NHS with a 28% reduction in GP appointments and a 33% reduction in outpatient appointments. It is one of the first examples of the NHS supporting retrofit schemes in order to reduce the cost of health and social services but such schemes need to be valued more by the government and the health sector. CHC is working closely with organisations in Wales to develop similar approaches. Other schemes such as the ‘Warm homes healthy people fund’ show a clear example of the Department of Energy and Climate Change working with the Department of Health in the UK Government.

Legislation is needed to drive change at the necessary scale and pace. It should also be viewed as an opportunity to help create the future we want to see for Wales. With amendments to the Well-Being of Future Generations Bill, we can make it stronger together and transform the way we do things in Wales.

Shea Jones
Energy and Sustainability Officer

You can read Shea's original blog post here. 

Every traveller has a tale to tell

'Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.' I love that quote from Terry Pratchett - I'm not sure if it’s true for every traveller though.

Summing up over 5 months of travelling in this blog post would be difficult, but I think it's fair to say that a trip which saw me and my girlfriend Fiona visit Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Beijing, Japan, the USA and Canada was certainly a trip we’ll never forget. 

The purpose of my sabbatical leave was to travel and gain life experiences. Whilst travelling, I couldn’t help but notice some projects and ideas that I feel are worth exploring in my job role at CHC. For example, Portland (Oregon) in the USA which has earned its reputation as one of the greenest cities in the USA. This reputation is enhanced by information which reveals that Portland, for example, uses 20 percent more renewable energy than the national average and it was one of the first cities to ban plastic bags. Of course, there was some bad practice as well, but I won't pick out anything in particular for this blog post.

I think travelling has made me realise how different countries might approach certain things differently. It’s an obvious statement in a way, but actually seeing good and bad practice around the world was very interesting. However, I’ve only scratched the surface as there’s so much of the world that I haven’t seen. 

Now I’m back at CHC, one of the priorities for me has to be further exploring the potential for European funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency funding in order to help get a project bid in place. I’m planning to be out and about at conferences and meetings trying to catch up with people and find out who’s been up to what in the past 6 months or so, so if you see me, don’t be afraid to say hello! 

Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

Shea Jones
Energy and Sustainability Officer