Of eclecticism, behaviour change, heat pumps and gas boilers

Blogging

Looking back at my contribution to the blogs on Transition Edinburgh South (TES) website, I realised that they do not have a clear focus, reflecting instead my interest in many different aspects of sustainability. I am not sure whether this is a strength or a weakness but it is certainly consistent with my belief in the need to take a ‘Gestalt’ or holistic approach to sustainability and climate change, and to make good use of complementary insights from different disciplines.

Blogs so far…

My first blog appeared in July this year with a comment on

• the book by Henry Thoreau ‘Walden, or Life in the Woods’,
• This also included a short mention of Roger Deakin’s wonderful book  ‘Wildwood: A Journey through Trees’
• then for something completely different, I commented on the report on  'Climate Safety by the Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC)', an independent charity integrating key research on climate change, energy & economics.
• Yet another perspective, I reviewed the book by Douglas Adam (of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame) and Mark Carwardine (a zoologist) ‘Last chance to see’ on endangered species.
• The book festival was a great time to hear about climate change and sustainability from the experts and I was particularly interested by Anthony  Giddens’ latest book ‘the Politics of Climate Change’ because of his interest in behaviour change and why we find it difficult to change.
• In my last blog,  I commented on the successful Energy Fair organised by TES Energy group in September, I also questioned our commitment to reduce greenhouse gases emissions and discussed this in the context of reports from the Scottish Government on greenhouse gases emissions and energy generation. On the other hand, the Scottish Government is committed to the development of renewable energy and some interesting new developments were presented at the fair.

TES SOSO project

TES energy group ‘Switched on to Switching off’ (SOSO) project is currently taking place in Woodburn Terrace and Hope Park Terrace in South Edinburgh. It reflects the group’s view that we need to take a broad view when we address energy efficiency in tenements. 

While it is important to address the very practical challenges of energy efficiency and carbon management, we feel it is also important to work closely together as a community and find common solutions to the difficulties we want to address. We also acknowledge that decisions that are based on knowledge, practical information and take account of individual attitudes are more likely to be implemented. So all of this needs to be considered with care and respect.

Heat pumps, boilers and renewable energy

So, to heat pumps and boilers…

There are a lot of interesting dialogues about the best way to heat houses and water among residents in South Edinburgh, most particularly our TES group and the residents of tenements in Hope Park Terrace and Woodburn Terrace.  I am going to try and summarise some of the main points made by people.

Many of the residents we have talked to in the streets are interested in finding out the best way to heat their homes and water so we have had quite a few email exchanges about boilers and renewable alternatives: heat pumps and solar panels. 

Alister Hamilton's advice on heat pumps

Useful information and discussion about heat pumps can be found in Alister Hamilton's blog on heat pumps, including information about the Ecocute Heat Pump which uses CO2 to produce energy to heat the water for central heating and for domestic use. The advantage of this heat pump is that it will heat water to 65 degree (higher temperature than other heat pumps) and it will work at much lower outside temperature than most other heat pumps.  The other advantage is that you will not need to replace existing radiators, a requirement for heat pumps which produce only a temperature of 50 degrees as they need a larger radiator surface to be efficient. 

Alister also indicates that this is a good solution to reduce greenhouse gases emissions because heat pumps are more energy effiiency. Assuming that 35% of the electricity produced in Scotland will  come from renewable energy by 2011, then the heat pump will deliver a 49% CO2 reduction on gas fired boilers.

Changeworks advice

Further information can also be found in the ‘energy link’ on this website, including Changeworks fact sheets for tenements. Changeworks have also produced two very helpful and detailed reports ‘Renewable Heritage’ a guide to micro-generation in traditional and historic homes and ‘Energy Heritage: a guide to improving energy efficiency in traditional and historic homes’.

What is best?

At TES, we have also had some queries about the cost of installing heat pumps compared to gas condensing or combi-boilers at present and whether gas fired boilers might be a good option because gas is less polluting than other fossil fuels and we are mostly using polluting fossil fuels not renewable energy at present to generate electricity.

Communal options for renewables?

Other suggestions included the use of communal heat pumps (for a whole stair for instance) and these could even use biomass to generate the energy to run them. Communal solutions for tenements have already been used in Edinburgh, with the example of the case study from the Lister Housing Cooperative in Lauriston Place, where solar panels have been used to heat the water in tenement blocks (see Changeworks link for deta

Some members have expressed concerns about installing air source heat pumps in tenements because the heat pump unit located on outside walls of buildings might be noisy (45 decibel per unit), unsightly and might also unduly reduce the temperature around the wall, particularly if everybody in the tenement has installed heat pumps.  Some people suggested putting the heat pump unit on the roof if possible and using the chimney for the pipes or outside pipes going to the roof.  This could apply to individual or communal heat pumps. Some people also suggested using a combination of heat pumps and wood burning stoves.

It looks as though there might be lots of possible solutions for tenements and these options need to be investigated as soon as possible. The SOSO project is planning to commission a feasibility study for renewable energy in tenements as part of future projects.

I would be interested to hear more about this from the experts…

All the best,

Michele