Grow your own energy
By phil. Filed in energy-saving |
Some countries generate as much as 40% of energy for heating through biomass fuels but it’s less than 1% in the UK – reason enough to predict a huge role for biomass in helping meet the UK’s renewable energy goals
Biomass – or, according to one definition, “organic matter that was living recently” which could be anything from “wood to sewage sludge, animal slurries and crops grown for energy purposes” – is still only just taking off in the UK. However, over the past 15 years, such systems have been widely adopted in Austria, Germany, Denmark and elsewhere. In fact, Austria takes a staggering 40% of its heating from renewable energy sources – by contrast, the UK has been slow to pick up the biomass baton and takes less than 1%.
This is where the Carbon Trust comes in as a pump primer for new ideas and private sector firms looking to adopt new technologies needed to take the place of the UK’s now dwindling gas and oil reserves. Founded in 2001, the Carbon Trust is an independent company set up and funded by the government in response to the threat from climate change. Its remit is to speed up the move to a low carbon economy by working with private companies and public sector organisations to reduce carbon emissions now and develop commercial low-carbon technologies for the future.
One of its key private/public sector initiatives is the biomass heat accelerator programme, which aims to increase use of biomass energy. It works with biomass heating equipment suppliers to cut costs and reduce risks in the fuel supply chain and promotes awareness and understanding of the new technology among companies and institutions. Biomass is much further down the line than other technologies like wave power but many businesses still need to be made aware of its huge potential for reducing heating bills, a key part of the programme’s work.
“Quite often we’re working with private companies to develop the technologies, help them work better or work at all,” says the Carbon Trust’s technology acceleration manager, Keiran Allen. “But we also support companies starting to use the technology [see panel below] – energy-efficient products providing more efficient lighting, boilers, refrigeration, insulation etc.”
In January when the Carbon Trust launched its handbook, Biomass Heating: A Practical Guide for Potential Users, its director of innovations, Mark Williamson, stressed that “renewable heating will need to play a key role in meeting the UK’s renewable energy targets, and biomass offers the greatest potential to contribute to this.”
In its UK Renewable Energy Strategy white paper, published this July, the government spells out a big role for biomass in helping meet a renewable energy target of up to 14% of the UK’s heating needs by 2020. In fact, using biomass makes remarkable sense – carbon is first taken out of the atmosphere by plants during growth and then put back through burning. Net carbon emissions are minimal. “Biomass technology in its early stages,” says Allen. “There are very few people in the UK doing this. It is an early adopters’ technology market.”
Since its launch, the Carbon Trust has advised 75% of the FTSE 100 companies and tens of thousands of other business and public sector organisations. It has helped clients save 23m tonnes of carbon emissions and made direct cost savings of £1.4bn, supporting a wide range of new, innovative, low-carbon technologies alongside biomass. Customers big and small range from Hilton, Morrison’s and the Royal Mail through to many small businesses, hospitals and local authorities.
But to innovate or adopt these technologies requires information, expertise, research capacity and, more often than not, funding. “If you have an energy spend of more than £50,000 annually, companies and institutions can qualify for a free Carbon Trust survey which identifies ways of saving energy and money,” says Allen. “If a company wants to take it to the next level, it can co-fund a project with the Carbon Trust, funding more advice and surveys on site, specifying solutions in more detail and working out costs of design work and implementing the project.”
At implementation stage, the Carbon Trust offers interest-free loans up to £400,000. Recipients have to be small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and loans are paid back over the time during which new energy savings accrued by the company will have offset the cost of the loan. As Allen says: “As an unsecured, interest-free loan in the current economic climate, it’s a real no brainer for businesses that have high energy spend.”
Tags: energy, energy-saving, saving
