Agenda item

The attached report  and presentation covers the following:

·       ELENA Programme Update

·       Warm Up Bristol

·       Heat Networks

 

Energy presentation

 

The commission received a report and presentation from Bill Edrich, Service Director Energy and the following team members; Mareike Schmidt, Paul Barker and David White.

 

Bill Edrich outlined the report and presentation to the Commission. 

·       The team had attracted national and international recognition for the work done in this area and Bristol is recognised as being one of the leading Cities in this field.

·       The funding obtained had ensured that the Energy Service’s impact on the Council’s revenue budget was almost cost neutral

·       The city council energy bill remain static in a time when energy prices continue to grow by c20% this can be credited to the work undertaken by the team together with the reduction of council owned/leased properties.

·       Future changes and improvements to the National Grid is on the way with the industry integrating digital technology into their operation this will change the energy sector muck like how Amazon changed the retail sector and open up future possibilities.

·       Since 2010 The National Grid’s generation customer base has extend from 10’s of generators to approximately 6000 generators customers.

 

ELENA - Mareike Schmidt

 

The European Local Energy Assistance (ELENA) Programme technical assistance grant was signed off by the European Investment Bank in March 2012 and it is now at the end of the 4 year programme.

 

The funding of £2million provided for a programme of work across four areas:

·       Set up of a municipal energy company

·       Energy saving measures on social and private housing properties

·       Energy efficiency measures on public buildings

·       Solar PV installations on social housing and public sector building

 

a.     The team are now viewed as Market leaders amongst local authorities finding themselves in the position of being sought after to share learning from the work done.

 

b.     The Programme had clear guidelines for delivery with a leverage factor of 25:1 applicable.  This meant for every pound spent 25 times the investment had to be delivered.

 

c.     Overall learning was that in place of the procurement exercise for each of  the four strands of work, a single procurement procedure to cover all four strands of work for the programme would have been a more productive way forward.

 

 

d.     The authority has been invited to make a further bid for funding which is a compliment to the team and reflect the high regard in which the team is held.

 

Warm Up Bristol – Mareike Schmidt

 

The domestic energy efficiency programme was established in January 2014 with funding of £7.3m obtained from the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) in July 2014 leading to the launch of Warm Up Bristol in October 2014.

 

The Service Manager provided an overview of the situation regarding the failure of the delivery partner Climate Energy for the programme and the steps taken in mitigation.

 

a.     Members were advised that Warm Up Bristol programme was a different programme to that provided to social housing tenants of the City Council.  The programme provided to social housing tenants is ‘Warmer Homes’.  Both schemes have similar names and this has given rise to confusion.

 

b.     Learning is shared between the Housing Delivery service and the team.

 

c.     General view that the brand ‘warm up Bristol’ brand would have been damaged because of past issues.  It was suggested that the programme should be rebranded. 

 

d.     Clarity was sought on the fund of £300k available for loans to Bristol residents to support energy efficiency works.  Concern that a loan fund would have limited capacity for continued support.   The Energy Service has been lobbying government on making more of the funds available to the Wessex loan fund to continue the delivery of energy efficiency measures.

 

e.     Community energy fund supports local work for example the Cheese project – Cold Homes Energy Efficiency Survey Experts – the project provide a services that assist residences/home owners in specific areas to identify cold spots and heat loss from their houses, with the use of thermal imagining and the visit of an expert.

 

f.      Action list of community energy projects to be provided to members.

 

Heat Networks - Paul Barker

 

The Programme Manager reported on the establishment of the District Heating Networks providing an outline of the different phases of the programme. Outlining progress on completion of phase 1 explained in the July 2014 Cabinet report.  The programme continues working to ensure that new developments within the designated area adapt to connect to the heat networks.

 

a.     The team met with the BEIS the department for business energy and industrial strategy in Bristol citing Bristol as a leading authority on heat network delivery.

 

b.     Aspiration to make use of the waste heat being generated from Avonmouth by transferring same along a heat network.

 

c.     Research demonstrated the heat loss along pipe networks was a mere 1% and the aspiration would be that the pipe heat network would develop along the route where other heat networks would be installed as part of new development that would also be fed from Avonmouth heat pipe.

 

d.     The laying of pipes was complicated because of the number of utility companies that have cables and service pipes underground.  Such areas as the Temple quay roundabout had to be navigated carefully and was also impacted because it is one of the busiest roundabout junction London.

 

e.     Question was asked on moving to water based energy possibly harnessing the water energy around the harbour.  Conversations had been had about heating and cooling but at this time there is no move towards this form of technology.

 

Future Ambition

 

f.      There remains an issue surrounding the city council budget and what would be reasonable to invest into this programme of work.

 

g.     Current budget

·       £8million existing in capital and in budget

·       £14million of new capital

·       Amount £23million capital to deploy

·       £40million total capital programme including external funding by 2021

·       £18 million need to be attracted to complete capital programme

 

h.     To achieve our Carbon neutrality 2050 ambition approximately £800m to 1 billion should be spent over the next 10 years to achieve 10% saving on the top of the national projection within that timeframe.

 

i.       It is essential to source new types of energy and to resolve the storage issue in respect of renewal and embedded energy.

 

j.       The Service is investigating the proposal for Bristol City Council owning and storing energy on a national grid scale.

 

k.     Gloucester County Council has £80million investment into sourcing storage options as compared to the Energy Service budget of £19million.

 

l.       Currently while the Service is aware of geothermal this is something to be explored once the first heat networks are established in the City.

 

m.   The Service has given consideration on where the programme sits.  Whilst it remains within Bristol City Council there is less flexibility and financial constraints.  Moving to an independent organisation would allow for the consideration of wider risk management.

 

n.     There is an awareness that the use of Biomass impacts air quality.  As an energy option it should be considered alongside other energy producing options but should be sourced from sustainable sources and only be a small component in the overall energy mix.

 

o.     The EU funding provided by the ELENA grant allowed for the research into all viable options allowing the project to identify where it enables development and what work is undertaken by the city.

 

p.     Hydrogen which is a by-product from wind farms may be involved in future development but probably only post 2021 due ot human and financial resource constraints.

Resolved to Note the Report