Local Area Energy Plan
(LAEP)

Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe Local Authorities are working together to create a Local Area Energy Plan. The purpose of the Plan is to help the Authorities achieve their Net-Zero goals.

The focus of the current study (undertaken by Mott MacDonald) is mainly on Housing, with the capital investment and benefits of various options (inc. Solar PV, and Heat pumps) being examined and the net costs and benefits of various scenarios being considered.

The slides of the latest presentation are here

It is interesting that Solar PV (both Domestic and Commercial) is seen as a “quick win” with them suggesting that 80% of roofs facing SE to SW would provide a positive return. This is much in line with our thinking.

East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA)

A key commitment of the East Midlands Combined County Authority is  to address the global climate crisis and tackle climate change.

” Our journey to Net Zero will see us become carbon neutral by 2050 aligning with national ambitions and taking the region on a journey to become cleaner and more sustainable, with improved green spaces, increased biodiversity and delivering life-long housing with high levels of energy efficiency.”

Information about current plans to enable us to make energy efficient improvements to our homes can be found here 

Centre for Sustainable Energy
– Solar Wizard

We have been looking at Solar Wizard for some time. This is a program that allows individual householders to look at whether their home MIGHT be somewhere that Solar PV would be a positive. It uses:
– LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) data to identify buildings and roofs,
– PVGIS (Photovoltaic Geographical Information System) to calculate the electricity generation profile for the building and
– MCS (Microgeneration Certification Scheme) data to estimate the cost of installing the Solar PV.

Until the recent update, only part of our area had LIDAR data so it was difficult to use for a community scheme for our area.  Now we can look at groups of houses which allows us to take our ideas further.

Energy Local

We recently attended a workshop by Energy Local, (a Community Energy group) who work with energy suppliers to make Community Energy Schemes achievable.

The slides from day 1 of the workshop are here and from day 2 here. These ideas feed into our thoughts for future activities.