News – TV Energy proudly presents its 2008 Conference

September 2008: Fifty delegates from local authorities and other organisations in the Thames Valley and beyond attended TV Energy’s conference on 10th September in the Town Hall, Oxford. This was the sixth sustainable energy conference organised by TV Energy since the first one was held in 2002.

Cllr Royce Longton (Chairman of TV Energy) welcomed delegates to Oxford and introduced the first speaker, Keith Richards, TVE’s Managing Director. Keith summarised the local, regional and national renewable energy pictures as they had developed over the years, highlighting the fairly consistent gap between ambition and implementation, and pointing up the local authorities as potentially the “first, last and only line of defence”. Andy Lamb of Scottish and Southern Energy spoke about his company’s commitment to renewables and described some of SSE’s new energy services initiatives, including their potential to reduce emissions and the barriers. Andy was followed by Ben Mayo of Regenatec, a company pure plant oil (PPO) vehicle conversion packages, with environmental, financial and technical superiority over many other renewable biofuels.

In the second session, entitled Good Practice, ACTVaR chairman Barry Deller introduced Cllr Andrew Cooper of both Kirklees Council and the Renewable Energy Association. Andrew presented the pioneering and successful sustainable energy packages introduced by his Council over the past few years, including a Renewable Energy Fund for council-owned homes and buildings, interest-free loans to install domestic renewables, a huge programme of free insulation to all residents, and wind turbines and solar panels totalling 30 kW on top of the council’s HQ. Anthony Whitton from TV Bioenergy then took delegates through the topic of bioenergy and what to consider when implementing wood fuel heating in suitable buildings. As a case study demonstrating in practice, Michael Beech (TV Energy associate) gave a “warts and all” description of the Curridge Primary School wood chip boiler process, from its conception right through to the end of its first complete year of operation.

In the third and final session of the day, David Payne from the Regional Assembly introduced three speakers on the vital role of the planning system for sustainable energy. Jake Roos of Uttlesford DC in Essex explained the genesis and impacts of his authority’s sustainable planning policies, including the ground-breaking consequential whereby any existing building extension proposal must adopt energy efficiency improvements in the rest of the building. Ian Bacon of TV Energy and Blewburton Partners outlined the benefits and potential pitfalls in using BREEAM and other sustainable building standards as an excellent tool for improving a district’s economic, social and environmental sustainability. Last but not least Prof. Mike Gibson introduced the concept of Balance Trading, or ‘topping up’ new buildings to carbon neutrality or zero carbon status in future.

This would involve a tough, monitored ‘last resort’ carbon offset fund enabling retrofit renewables and efficiency measures on existing houses and buildings in the immediate locality of the development.

You can download all ten inspiring presentations via the PDF links below: