The Icon

CAMBRIDGE City Council sets out its priority of taking action on climate change and biodiversity in its budget for 2020-21. The General Fund Budget Setting Report, which has just been published, highlights how the annual government grant for the Cambridge Council dropped from £5m in 2013 to zero in 2019, and government New Homes Bonus funding now also projected to be cut...

THE INDUSTRIAL Heat Recovery Support programme is designed to encourage and support investment in heat recovery technologies. This means helping businesses of any size to identify and invest in opportunities for recovering and reusing heat that would otherwise be wasted. The programme runs until March 2022. Recovered waste heat can be used in many ways, including: within the same industrial facility by...

NEW augmented reality app helps fight ‘unflushables’ by showing householders how flushing the wrong items would block their drains and sewers. Public services provider Amey has partnered with ClicksandLinks,a specialist supplier in the augmented reality field, to develop the app, which will be piloted across the Severn Trent contract that serves 4 million properties and 8 million customers. The app allows...

THE COMBINED Heat and Power Quality Assurance Programme (CHPQA) is a government initiative providing a practical, determinate method for assessing all types and sizes of Combined Heat and Power schemes throughout the UK. Combined Heat and Power, the simultaneous generation of heat and power in a single process, provides one of the most cost-effective approaches for making carbon savings and plays...

WESTERN Power Distribution have published their intention to procure 334MW of demand response services across their network through multiple channels – the largest amount from any UK Network Operator. The requirements cover 175 primary substations across one fifth of the company's network. Ben Godfrey, Network Strategy Manager at Western Power Distribution, said: “Our fifth and largest procurement round delivers on our...

UK’s first live pilot to inject zero carbon hydrogen into a gas network to heat homes and businesses is now fully operational. HyDeploy is a green energy trial at Keele University, Staffordshire, that could help Britain cut its carbon emissions and open the door to a low-carbon hydrogen economy. The HyDeploy demonstration is injecting up to 20% (by volume) of hydrogen...

GENERATION of electricity from low-carbon sources in the UK stalled in 2019, new analysis by Carbon Brief shows. Low-carbon electricity output from wind, solar, nuclear, hydro and biomass rose by just 1 terawatt hour (less than 1%) in 2019. It represents the smallest annual increase in a decade, where annual growth averaged 9TWh. According to Carbon Brief, this growth will need to...

SAJID Javid announced today that he will be putting environment at the forefront of his First Budget. The Budget is said to build on recent announcements to 'boost spending on public services and tackle the cost of living.' Mr Javid commented: "People across the country have told us that they want change. We’ve listened and will now deliver. "With this Budget we...

UK government must act on Tata Steel's concerns over high energy prices, according to First Minister Mark Drakeford. He made the statement in response to Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of the Tata Sons group, saying the plant in Port Talbot needed to be 'self-sustaining.' Mr Drakeford also added that other counties allowed firms to pay less for energy. In a press conference attended...

NEW regulations will be developed to ensure all new homes in Scotland use renewable or low carbon heating from 2024. This move to increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions for new-build homes will run alongside a £30m investment in renewable heat projects. Renewable and low carbon heating systems will also be phased in for non-domestic buildings given consent to build...