Useful Energy Links

The information below will be of particular interest to residents in Woodburn Terrace and Hope Park Terrace who are taking part in the energy project conducted by members of two community groups Transition Edinburgh South and the Edinburgh South Energy Efficiency.

It includes practical advice on energy in tenements as well as more general information from local organisations. We also seek the advice of specialists when residents ask questions that we cannot answer.

Most of the information below has been compiled by members of the community, with advice from the Energy Saving Trust and Changeworks. However, members of the community are not experts and residents are advised to consult the Energy Saving Trust (see web link below) for specialist individual advice about energy projects they might wish to undertake.

Double glazing

http://www.fountainbridgewindows.co.uk/double_glazing.htm

Including a useful alternative for those who don’t want to replace the frames of their sash windows.

Electricity Monitor Library Lending Scheme

• See attachments (doc and pdf) below.

Energy Saving

• Energy Saving Trust
• Changeworks

Ecocute Heat Pumps

• Contact Peter Hamilton, Renewable Heat Strategies at pjhamilton@toucansurf.com

Householder Grants in Scotland for Renewables

• Householder Grants

Interest Free Loans for Insulation, Renewables

• Energy Saving Scotland home loan

Oil & Gas Depletion

• Oil Depletion Analysis Centre 
• The Energy Bulletin
• The Oil Drum

Woodfuel

• Wood Energy Scotland

Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy

• BWEA

District Heat Pump

I enclose an email about heat pumps from Raemond Bradford for comments:

Hello, I like your site and the useful info on it. One query though regarding some posts about heat pumps - are you favouring individually owned heat  pumps? Edinburgh (like Glasgow where I live) has lots of tenements/high density housing which seem to make individual heat pumps less viable but would make district heating more viable. District heating could be supplied by a  combination of CHP and larger, more efficient heat pumps (eg Helsinki). I'm concerned about the implications of too widespread a takeup of individual (especially air source) heat pumps. As temperatures drop, the COP also drops to maybe 2 or less. Low air temperatures are often associated with low wind days so we could end up with a much higher requirement for thermal plant (coal or gas in Scotland) in order to meet the winter peak electric load. A small percentage of heat pumps in lower density housing areas would be good. Have you compared the benefits of district heat with heat pumps?

Could anyone who can offer comments please respond to this.

The two reports below provide detaied information about energy efficiency and renewable energy in tenements.

To learn more about these project visit:

http://www.changeworks.org.uk/content.php?linkid=373

http://www.changeworks.org.uk/content.php?linkid=424

 Next: Read additional information for tenements and related blog articles by TES members

A research conducted for the Scottish Government Social Research in 2008  in a 'hard to treat' detached Victorian house found out that 88% of carbon emissions were caused by (in decreasing order: walls 28%, boiler efficiency 14%, glasing 13% , ventilation conductance, floor, water heating, roof, tumble dryer, fridge freezer, dishwasher, gas boiler electric consumption, electric shower, lighting and door (around 2%) 0 see the report below on tackling hard to treat properties.