1: Intelligent Metering, Leicester City Council

1: Intelligent Metering, Leicester City Council.

Name and geographical location

Don Lack, Head of Service, Energy Manager, Leicester City Council.

Brief description

Since 2000, Leicester City Council has been installing automated and intelligent metering systems into the city’s buildings. 550 buildings now have them. These meters read energy and water consumption on a half hourly basis so it is possible to pinpoint in real time any extraordinary shifts in patterns of resource use and diagnose the underlying cause. Behavioural adjustments can then be made on the basis of reliable evidence and successful change can be measured. In this respect it is like a bio-feedback mechanism.

Since becoming a unitary authority, Leicester has been installing meters in all its schools. Local businesses are voluntarily joining the scheme. Leicester is now running a pilot with Severn Trent Water on 50 houses. Through registration with the Energy Centre they have access to 92,000 homes which may in time be persuaded to sign up. Incentives on offer to householders are free TV digiboxes, the front page of which will display the monitoring information so participants in the scheme can see for themselves how much money/energy/water they are saving/wasting.

Objectives

To demonstrate the need to monitor buildings energy and water use in real time, to identify real data and to learn from the opportunities this gives to make significant energy and water savings.

To use this data to capture the benefits of behavioural changes in people’s use of energy and water within buildings following awareness-raising (awareness in this case being awareness of consumption patterns and costs) action or changes in operation of systems.
To utilise the lessons learnt by Leicester City Council energy management team to identify the benefits for other energy managers for their buildings and to create a network of shared expertise across Europe.
Identify new tools and procedures for today’s energy managers and move towards a reactive, proactive real-time solution.
Long term reduction in Leicester’s energy consumption with consequent financial and CO2 savings, and understanding and improvement of poor performance buildings.

Agenda and expected behavioural changes/ projected outcome

Identification of buildings with high base loads that have been hidden by monthly or quarterly historic data in the past.
Shorten reaction times to wastage with same day analysis of problem. New kind of auditing system.
Behavioural change and its effectiveness in the workplace can be monitored by the Energy Centre.
Provides proof that energy saving installations deliver, and if not keeps them on track. Paybacks can be validated and real carbon savings credited to each project.
Data collection at source can be fed back to utility company for more accurate billing.

Planned measures of success

Local Authorities and Energy Managers start specifying the need for intelligent metering which under deregulation they have a right to.
Exponential growth of scheme based on savings reinvestment in further energy efficiency measures.

Current status

The four year project is well underway. Meters continue to be installed because Leicester Energy Agency has a license to install them from Transco.

Role and involvement of HCC

Hampshire is invited to become involved and Leicester offers a consultancy service to other local authorities based on their successful experience.

People

Don Lack is organisationally well positioned. Through his work at the city council he can pioneer the approach for council stock, as director of the City’s Energy Agency he pioneers it in the business sector and by managing the Energy Efficiency Advice Centre he reaches the domestic communities.

Instigators/ enablers/ drivers

Deregulation of utilities allows specification of metering system in new build. Carbon Trust providing funding under Local Authority Energy Financing Scheme. Invest to Save methodology. Carbon Levy; Kyoto. Rising fuel costs and shift in future balance of supply. Obligations under fuel poverty initiatives; Home Energy Conservation Act. Obligation to practice what we preach by Environment City Award.

Local involvement/ support

Partnership with Water Authorities. SMEs

Achievements/ “what have we learned”

Achieving over a million pounds of savings across the City.

Even installing the best equipment for achieving energy efficiency does not necessarily perform unless used effectively.
Previous information from utility companies has been poor and unreliable which could only provide “guesstimates” of building performance.
Various organizational changes that do away with energy managers leave in-house teams with no expertise to monitor billing.
Lack’s research shows that many local authorities are paying around 20 per cent more for energy they have not used.
Organisations like the Energy Savings Trust base their reports of savings on an assumed model rather than robust verifiable data.
It has cost £800,000 to install intelligent metering on all sites but it is saving £1.4 million each year. For every million spent on water and energy the organization should have one person in an energy/water management function.
“If you don’t practice what you preach, as I do when giving away low energy light bulbs, you’re lost.” Positive feedback about changes creates a feel good factor.

Transfer of best practices to other initiatives

As yet there is poor take-up by other local authorities. Don gives presentations in different regions, offers consultancy service and is part of a European energie cities initiative aiming to spread this good practice across Europe. The learning and case studies from the Leicester experience are used in the Buildings Research Establishment’s Foundation courses in the UK.

Next steps

More of the same. Over time the Energy Centre will accumulate a huge database of building performance data.

2. Integrating residential carbon management and fuel poverty reduction.

Name & Geographical location

Dave Pickles, Energy Agency Manager, Newark & Sherwood Council.

Brief description

In 1985 Newark and Sherwood District Council developed an Affordable Energy Strategy that was “property based.” Since 2001 it is assumed that a vulnerable single pensioner will occupy every dwelling sooner-or-later. If a dwelling is affordable to a vulnerable pensioner then it is affordable to all other vulnerable householders. The same standards have been applied to all tenures of housing, a Newark & Sherwood Council ‘Local Best Value Performance Indicator’.

To effectively and efficiently monitor and manage a strategy to eradicate fuel poverty from the local housing stock needs a 100% Residential Energy Performance Database. This data base also supports HECA activities, and has the potential to support a local residential carbon management agenda.

Objectives

Achieving the 100% Residential Energy Performance Database.
To eradicate the risk of fuel poverty from Newark & Sherwood’s housing stock.

Agenda and expected behavioural changes/ projected outcome

Tackling Fuel Poverty:

Using April 2003 data[i], 98.4% of Newark & Sherwood’s Council owned stock is capable of delivering affordable energy to a vulnerable single pensioner. The current version 2001SAP is 70.4. This has been achieved by investing in

the basic “cost effective” energy efficiency measures, including oil heating to non-gas areas
dealing with energy design defects (flat roofs, half-brick external walls, dropped eaves etc) but no widespread wall insulation to the 14% harder to heat dwellings.
marginalising costs by integrating into 'improvement & maintenance' life-cycleasset management programme

Planned measures of success

The EEC relevance of this property based energy strategy is that the theoretical CO2 emission savings are 41% 1990-2003. Mindful of the 2003 Energy White Paper, and with existing policies (includes Grade A boilers), the Council stock’s 2020 projection is for an average NHER 9.1, with theoretical CO2 savings of 55%, 1990-2020 (40% CO2 after betterment).

Timescales

All house types were energy audited in 1988 using Energy Auditor, a software package that was the precursor to NHER. This desk top audit of all house type drawings established that the Council’s Strategy and Action plan could deliver affordable warmth target to all its 7,500 dwellings. A 20-year programme was scheduled, and costs were estimated at £16.4m. A database of all energy efficiency investments is held by the Architect’s team, and is currently within a Microsoft Access database. On 31st March each year the contents of this database are exported to MAXIM for updating and analysis using NHER software.

Current status

Ongoing

Role and involvement of HCC

Project documentation and CD Rom provided for HCC and may prove to be highly relevant for climate change strategy.

People

Involves behavioural change by architects, energy experts, householders, those holding and managing data.

Instigators/ enablers/ drivers

a) Warm Homes Act 2000. To eradicate the risk of fuel poverty from Newark & Sherwood’s housing stock, all dwellings of a reasonable size need to be capable of delivering affordable energy to a vulnerable householder. This is on the basis that sooner-or-later all dwellings will be occupied by a low income householder.

b) The Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 (HECA). Tackling Fuel Poverty in a systematic manner means that all dwellings need a fuel poverty risk assessment. Hard to Heat studies have established that basic cost effective insulation and a Building Regulation standard central heating system will deliver affordable energy to vulnerable householders. To eradicate fuel poverty from the housing stock the authority has to deliver the local Home Energy Conservation Act target of 30.3% reduction 1996-2010.

c) Residential Carbon Management. As a HECAplus this involves monitoring additional dwellings built after the Home Energy Conservation Act, monitoring extensions / conversions of dwellings that increase the volume of the housing stock, and the assessing the take up of renewables / green tariff electric.

d) ‘Councils for Climate Protection’ Project. A DEFRA-IDeA project, software trailed for UK Local Government during 2000-2002, and likely to be rolled out 2003. Enables inventory of local Green House Gas liabilities and the modeling of ‘what-if’ scenarios. The software has a “municipal corporate” GHG inventory and a “community” GHG inventory.

Integrating the delivery of these 4 issues marginalizes the costs attributable to any one task. The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Local involvement/ support

Gaining support particularly from pensioners.

Lack of support from energy suppliers who will not provide data because of cost of extraction software.

The Energy Savings Trust has also refused to release data under the data protection act even though English Heritage will provide data of grants provided.

Achievements/ “what have we learned”

Statistical returns have limited value. To efficiently affect progress at a local level a front line practitioner needs “address specific” residential energy performance data.

All Local Authorities are completing their Address Gazetteers, and these address databases are largely being linked to electronic GIS maps. This provides the basis for comprehensive local Residential Energy Performance Databases.

Tackling Fuel Poverty and Residential Carbon Management are each ‘joined up’ agendas and need ‘joined up’ information to efficiently manage the progress to a lower energy and low carbon residential sector in England.

The lessons that we have learnt from 6-years of undertaking DIY householder surveys are:

A covering letter from the Council increased take-up of responses. The envelope should also indicate that the letter is from the Council ~ postal frank.
Our return for the BRE’s HECAMON postal survey was 37%. The Council undertaking an in-house postal survey was cheaper than commercial telephone surveys. However we were looking for opportunities to marginalize the costs of the BRE-HECAMON. The standard HECAMON proved to be frustrating in as much as we could not readily provide follow-up advice, nor estimate the percentage of Newark & Sherwood householders in fuel poverty; nor establish the percentage of dwellings not capable of delivering affordable energy should they be occupied by a vulnerable householder. A NSDC-HECAMON has been devised using NHER software to facilitate multiple outcomes.
For mass mail-outs of unsolicited DIY surveys, a simplified form increases returns.
To our surprise the DIY Survey returns have been found to be reasonably accurate when compared to the same dwellings professionally surveyed. (see below)

The outcomes we now accrue from the one survey are:

An energy educational message to the householder of a ‘Global to Local’ nature piggy-backs the covering letter to the DIY survey
43% return rate of surveys (some areas as high as 50%), each of which gets a basic Newark & Sherwood energy advice pack turned around within 1-working day. Of the surveys returned 44% are from pensioners.
Warm Front referrals identified with details forwarded by post – those that do not then contact the Council’s Energy Agency have a follow up telephone call.
Retuned survey forms are converted into electronic format. They are entered into the Residential Energy Performance Database, and also
Electronically re-arranged into a format needed by the local EEAC, who then provide an additional, though more authorative, energy advice pack to the householder some 2 weeks after the Council’s response
HECA progress analysis (additional questions are included in the annual random postal HECAMON survey)
Housing Investment Programme questions: stock average SAP and % dwellings less than SAP30
Take-up of renewable electric / energies will be fed into the Newark and Sherwood District residential carbon liability analysis
with an increase in sample size to 3,500 private sector surveys sent out, a fuel poverty analysis is now possible annually to supplement the quinquennial Stock Condition Surveys

Transfer of best practices to other initiatives

Newark and Sherwood District Council has beacon status. Dave Pickles runs workshops to disseminate best practice. He uses his own personal experience of reducing emissions as a starting point. Can advise on the least investment for biggest CO2 ceiling.

Next steps

Local Authorities also need to capture information from additional sources.

There should be an obligation for RSLs to provide energy performance data to ECAs

There should be a “contractual obligation” for Warm Front grant energy performance data to be passed onto the Energy Conservation Authority (ECA)

Similarly address specific EEC & Utility investments associated with residential energy performance data should be required to be passed onto the ECAs, as with
EST, Carbon Trust, or any other publicly co-funded projects should be a required to pass on any associated energy performance data to the ECAs.
NHBA new-build energy performance data needs to be required to forward to the ECAs
Natural gas availability by postcode
Boiler replacements – address list of new boilers fitted
Reglazing records required by Building Regulations – Fensa information
The EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings, now to likely commencement 2007, will require energy performance certificates to be produced when a dwellings is either built, sold or rented out. The energy performance data behind these certificates needs to be made available to ECAs.

For all the above client Data Protection Statements need to be worded accordingly – property details only needed, no names required.

Initial thoughts are that this database should be Local Government collectively controlled and managed by a centralised clearing house that would collect data, undertake basic analysis and forward to individual Energy Conservation Authorities. ECAs then have the option to undertake further local analysis. Local Authorities already have a duty to keep their Address Gazetteers up to date. They will need to link their Address Gazetteers to any LGA clearing house.

3. DEMOCS and The Herefordshire Partnership (a multi-agency approach.)

Name and geographical location

Geoffrey Perrott, Environmental Co-ordinator of the Herefordshire Partnership’s Environmental Ambition Group and Richard Wood, Local Agenda 21 Officer at Herefordshire Council, both closely involved with the Climate Change Working Group which aspires to be cross cutting across all 10 ambition groups which comprise the Herefordshire Partnership. “No other topic has the same promise of knitting together the different ambition groups striving for integration.”

Brief description

Herefordshire is a predominantly rural county and is therefore putting more emphasis on the role of Methane and Nitrous Oxide in climate change. They are trying to enlarge general understanding of greenhouse gases. 36% of greenhouse gas emitted by the county is methane and nitrous oxide, though this is reducing as the number of livestock goes down. 80% of land area is managed by farmers who adapt quickly to financial stimulus. However, “It’s a nightmare getting through to people in urban areas. Few people are changing their lightbulbs.”

1: Intelligent Metering, Leicester City Council

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