Gatecrashing the UK Energy Sector: ideas

How can we inject fresh thinking and ideas into the energy sector?

If we are to overcome the dual challenges of climate change and energy security we require a radical shift in how we generate, distribute, store and use energy. History tells us that this kind of significant change rarely comes from the companies which have found success in the existing system and we have to look to the fringes or even outside for the really disruptive ideas. Take the automobile as an example – it profoundly changed our systems of transport, our cities and our lives. But the Model T Ford was not invented by builders of horse-drawn carriages.

Forum for the Future, supported by The Tellus Mater Foundation, launched an experimental project to find and encourage those disruptive ideas. We want to help outsiders gatecrash the energy sector and shake up its preconceived ideas. This is not about renewables versus nuclear or centralised versus distributed. This is about changing our day-to-day relationship with energy. Forum for the Future’s project, Gatecrashing the Energy Sector, is a pilot project to identify and support disruptive innovation in the energy sector. Our aim is to help accelerate the creation of a sustainable energy sector.

We used a variety of methods to reach out to people doing interesting things in energy, brought people together in a couple of events and set up a web platform to share ideas.

 

 

The most popular ideas, as judged by the community and a panel of experts, were developed in a series of events and given the opportunity to win £4000 to develop further.

This document provides a summary of all the ideas that were posted on the Ideascale site that we had up for 3 months. We had a really enthusiastic response: 75 ideas were posted, generating 373 comments from the 176 users, which totalled to 364 votes.

Product suggestions (in order of popularity)

Nationwide voltage optimisation – 29 votes

The concept of voltage optimisation is widely accepted in commercial fields. The commercial sector regularly utilises the technology to make proven savings in terms of lower energy use, smaller electricity bills and reduced carbon emissions. If this technology were to be rolled out to households throughout the UK, it would have an immediate and tangible impact. A low-cost cost and proven technology, the product does not require any ongoing maintenance. Typical domestic savings have been demonstrated to be around 10 per cent on electricity bills and CO2 savings over the 25+ year life span are in excess of four tonnes per unit. Nationwide domestic voltage optimisation could be a significant, low-cost initiative that could really spark a low-carbon energy revolution! Matt Cody

Compulsory shared heating schemes for all large new developments - 7 votes For large developments of new build (e.g.10+ new dwellings in one place) it should be compulsory to connect them to a shared heating scheme. Combining a large central thermal store with solar thermal technology (STE) and ground-source heat pumps plus a network of hot water distribution pipes, could meet the space-heating and hot water requirements of the entire development. STE would be sufficient to meet half the energy needs; excess solar thermal heat in summer can be diverted to heat up the ground around the heat-source heat pumps, which would provide power during winter. For a thousand homes a thermal store can reasonably hold enough heat for a good two weeks use. This would be enough to smooth out large variations in renewable supplies. As the shared heating plant would be a single large connection to the electricity grid, it could have its own substation, to reduce distribution-grid losses. We won't have enough bio-gas to burn in homes for heat, so we should start building homes are heated by renewable energy. Energy Numbers

Direct current (DC) power straight to your household appliances – 5 votes Solar panels create DC power, which could be used directly in our household appliances without the need for conversion, thereby saving on conversion losses. www.moixaenergy.com are already working on this and there may be others. Charlie O’Malley Electric Vehicle Load Balancing Pilot – 5 votes This idea is written up by the moderators and is an amalgamation of ideas from the site plus judges' feedback. Idea summary: If enough electric vehicles are connected to charging points in a community then they can be used for storage/load balancing. The aim would be to find out at what number/percentage of electric vehicles is needed in a community to reach a tipping point where they become useful part of grid. Judges comments: Electric vehicles are seen as a vital part of a low-carbon economy but there has been little consideration of what can be done with a large number of vehicles attached to the energy system. Source: Judging Session Gines Haro "Hot fill" white goods – 4 votes Solar thermal technology is a low cost with short payback way to generate thermal energy. Its role in the home is limited by "cold" fill white goods (i.e. dishwashers and washing machines). If "hot" fill products were more widely available (or products with hot / cold fill options) then solar thermal would contribute more to the home. W. McFarland A penny saved is a penny earned – 4 votes The goal is to spark a low-carbon energy revolution. The first step I think is to reduce energy usage by introducing insulation on a massive scale. This is equivalent to building low-energy generating capacity to the same level, but much quicker and cheaply. It also alters culture/mindset. Finn Jackson

Encourage re-use of waste heat – 4 votes Go to any local swimming pool with a gym and you are likely to see outdoor air conditioning units pumping out heat from the gym into the air outdoors, despite sharing the building with a pool that needs all the heat it can get! Gyms are not alone in this. I have even come across an ice-rink that dumps its heat rather than send it to the swimming pool next door. The idea would be to target places like this and encourage them to recycle their heat and therefore reduce energy bills. Back_ache Pilot synthetic fuel project from water and atmospheric CO2 – 3 votes Hydrocarbons can be manufactured from CO2 and H2O. We have too much CO2 in the air and plenty of H2O around our coasts. Once we have a renewables-rich grid, there will be times of significant energy surpluses. It makes sense to use those surpluses to create stored energy. Hydrocarbons are a great way to store energy; they are useful in HGVs, planes and power stations. We used to produce synthetic fuel in the Second World War and we should pilot it again, except this time by using atmospherically-extracted CO2 and H2O from the seas, creating a carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuel. This will be particularly valuable as oil prices increase. See the recent paper by Klaus Lackner et al on the economics, energy inputs and processes that this involves, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2010.07.014. Energy Numbers Smart Communities – 3 votes This idea is written up by the moderators and is an amalgamation of ideas from the site plus judges' feedback. Idea summary: pilot an open source smart grid project in a particular community and use the pilot to trial alternative energy services business models. The aim would be to find, develop and test technologies and approaches that could be easily distributed to other communities to create smart grids from the ground up rather than waiting for utilities to roll out smart meters etc. This would create a resilient energy infrastructure; we need to experiment with new business models that are not reliant on selling more energy and try to give people greater control over the energy they use. Source ideas: Smart communities http://ideascale.com/t/UCxTZUmj Open source grid tools http://ideascale.com/t/UCxTZWBt Gines Haro

Top four ideas? – 2 votes "Between now and 15 October 2010, we will whittle it down to four big ideas, which will act as the focus of a series of workshops over the coming months." Personally I feel this is a self defeating purpose. Investors for decades try and predict the next best thing and you never know until after the event if it is successful. We cannot solve the scale of the issues we face with 4 big ideas. I suggest we need just one overarching objective: the wholesale displacement of carbon in our energy mix. Not carbon mitigation but actual displacement using every renewable energy source available. We demand destruction through efficiency and lifestyle changes and authorise this transition via localised, sure share ideas. Emphasis is one what is right for you and your community through the available resources. Djm

Compare my light bulb – 2 votes Develop a website that makes it easy to compare different light bulb sources e.g. tungsten, halogen, LED, compact florescent, metal halide etc. It can be confusing for the non-technical; the answer to simple questions like "will it dim" and "with everything considered is it better for the environment" are not always obvious. Back_ache

Open source electricity – 2 votes Feed-In tariffs export unused solar generated electricity into the grid, however this can be expensive and specialist. The idea of open source is to give each householder the facility or knowledge to plug back into the grid. There are a number of household innovations that depend on kinetic energy that whilst possibly neither efficient nor cost effective, are both appealing and educational. By asking people to be inventive and giving them the interface to try, the education gained in the process may help people to get their heads around electricity savings e.g. I won’t turn that light on as I otherwise I would have to run for an hour on the treadmill to generate enough electricity. Possibly prizes for the best ideas for the most electricity produced or self-sufficiency? Roger

Energy pools and energy unitisation – 2 votes An 'Energy Pool' is a community energy partnership framework agreement for stakeholders to ‘self organise’ to a common purpose of creating mega watts of renewable energy. Importantly, there are minimal operating costs thereby saving a significant amount of energy. The Energy Pool framework enables proportional risk and reward sharing between investors and managers. A 'macro' Energy Pool opens up the potential for DIRECT investment in 'micro' local energy 'puddles'. Financing is interest free through the creation and issue from the Pool of ‘units’ redeemable in payment for energy supplied or saved.

Unitisation offers the possibility of a transition currency redeemable in payment for energy. Unitising renewables and energy savings in this way enables value to be received now in return for intrinsically valuable units which will cost nothing to redeem in the future. Chris Cook Storage / load balancing project – 2 votes This idea is written up by the moderators and is an amalgamation of ideas from the site plus judges' feedback. Idea summary: identify and develop opportunities to improve grid load balancing through storage and/or smart grid technologies. Suggested next steps: • assess different options • select one or more preferred options to develop further • develop more detailed proposition Charlie O’Malley Create a transportable flow battery for generator replacement – 1 vote Create an open source design for transportable flow batteries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery) that can be used at events as a replacement for (or companion to) synchronised generators. It could be especially useful for events that only need large amounts of power for a relatively short amount of time (such as a concert during the show) and could otherwise be supplied from the mains. Back_ache Kick start deployment of stationary fuel cells – 1 vote In a real war on climate change, fuel cells would receive the priority and Great Britain has at least three companies that could lead on this. Ceres Power's prototype domestic solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) can run on North Sea gas, hydrogen or Calor gas. AFC's fuel cells are hydrogen only, but can power campus size facilities (hospitals, universities, etc.) ITM power can electrolyse spare grid energy (e.g. excess wind) and re-use it in fuel cells as electric power and heat. These fuel cells deliver more electricity from gas than we get from a gas fired power station. The 'waste' heat can often be used as well. In that way some 80 per cent or more of the gross energy can be used, whereas less than 40 per cent is used in winter when delivered via a power station. The necessary gas fuels can be delivered in the existing the gas network. The gas can be produced from renewable sources and be stored until needed Wumpowell

Smart Load – 1 vote

A prototype of a domestic load device (a Smart electricity plug or electricity outlet socket) has been developed that can disconnect non-essential loads whenever the system voltage, frequency or the rate of change in either of these parameters exceeds threshold limits. Bywateri Solar PV double monocrystalline silicon efficiency – 1 vote Apply tandem cell technology to monocrystalline silicon wafer construction, plus wafer surface enhancement, wafer thickness reduction and a changed wafer geometry to save waste. New wiring to reduce solar interference and parallel wiring would further increase efficiency. It may also be possible to replace the glass covers with plastic to save weight. From a study of available but un-applied technologies, a shift of cell efficiency from 16-18% to 32-36% would seem feasible, plus raw material economies and panel weight reduction. Ferrand Water recycling driveways – 1 vote We run a water recycling driveways company will that not only gain you a sustainable driveway but can also give you free recycled rain water. Info Bio-energy – 1 vote Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring form of chemiluminescence; energy is released by a chemical reaction in the form of light emission with 20% heat emission. The use of food waste products, through a series of bioreactors could provide a useful light and heat source whilst helping with food waste disposal. Tapir_keeper

Services (in order of popularity)

Disseminating global best practice – 24 votes Many places around the world are making radical CO2 reductions, transforming their local economies from ones based on fossil fuels to based on 100 per cent renewable. I am proposing a service dedicated to disseminating global best practice. This work could be massively expanded to develop a web based index of global best practice, a programme of inspirational talks and consultancy back-up. Gussing, an Austrian town, has cut CO2 by 93 percent and now generates all its own electricity, heat and transport fuels. A cutting edge wood gasification plant is the central technology, backed up with a wide range of other renewable energy technologies. At the same time the local economy has been transformed from an unemployment hotspot to a booming green economy. If UK politicians and planners knew what was possible they might make very much more exciting and sustainable decisions. Richard Priestley ESCO support resources – 19 votes Building on the community owned ESCO model that was represented at the meeting by Tresco, Ovesco and Brighton Energy Co-op my proposal is for a web based repository for sharing resources and ideas. Thus there would be a shift from an isolated 'wheel reinventing' approach to setting up community energy programmes to a standardised model that could be followed by new entrants with a team of experts whose knowledge could be drawn upon. Damian Tow Zopa for Energy – 10 votes People need to be able to invest in renewable power on their own roofs or in their own neighbourhoods. However access to roofs isn’t always possible, or there may not be a local co-op where they can purchase energy directly. I suggest either a micro-lending site like Zopa (http://uk.zopa.com/) fully devoted to energy, to help finance individual installations of renewable power or community projects OR a major campaign on Zopa's existing platform to kick-start energy-related projects. Molly Webb Community Renewables Development Support Scheme (CRDSS) – 7 votes With the new Feed-In tariff scheme and other legislation such as allowing local authorities to sell electricity to the National Grid, there are great opportunities for local councils and community groups to develop their own renewable energy schemes for the benefit of local people. The difficulty is for small groups like Parish Councils not having the funding required to investigate the potential for a renewable energy project and the development costs required to obtain planning permission.

My solution is to set up a Community Renewables Development Support Scheme (CRDSS) as an arm of the Green Investment Bank that would provide at risk funding for community groups and parish councils to develop projects. Any fund provision the CRDSS offer would require the group to enter into an agreement whereby the group paid back twice as much as they borrowed. This clause would only be triggered on the commission of the renewable energy installation and would be paid back over a set period. If the project was rejected or not developed then they would pay nothing back. A CRDSS could benefit the whole parish because it can use the income from the energy generation to further support sustainability within the local area: energy reduction, local composting schemes, rural bus services or community-run shop. J. Baldwin Provide finance and support for community energy schemes – 7 votes Community scale renewable energy has become an increasingly viable and desirable option, such as via the Feed-In tariff and the introduction of Ynni’r Fro in Wales. However community scale renewable energy development is hampered by the lack of development, feasibility support, grant funding and upfront capital. To resolve this, I am proposing the development of an investment and support programme. A community investment portfolio through an IPS share offer would provide the initial finance available, allowing communities to start generating a secure independent source of income much earlier than they would if they sought to secure grant funding. This also overcomes issues of state aid attached to EU funding. Unlike other investment programmes, the programme would also work with the community to help them set up local share offers and buy back the loan retaining as much wealth at a local level as possible. This generates a quicker turnaround allowing re-investment in other schemes. By investing resources at a community level the aim is to, quite literally, support communities to re-generate themselves by providing them with a secure income which the communities can then use to address local issues. Ken Moon Create an independent platform to lobby for a green economy – 7 votes This idea is written up by the moderators and is an amalgamation of ideas from the site plus judges' feedback. Idea summary: Recognising that in many cases legislative change is required to stimulate and support the scale of disruptive innovation we need. The idea is to create a non-profit organisation (working title: OurPower) that lobbies on behalf of a new model of sustainable energy provision. OurPower would use creative communications techniques and intelligent strategic partnerships to mobilise public pressure and political will to enact legislation that supports a sustainable energy system. While any specific issue that needs legislative change is interesting, the more fundamental issue is how to address the imbalance of power in the lobbying industry whereby all the vested interests have the financial muscle and the relationships. What would a lobbying organisation look like that was there to represent the public interest? Charlie O’Malley

Smart community – 6 votes Take the smart home concept and apply it at community level. This will help communities take a journey through this decade which starts with ideas people can easily get their heads around (e.g. using social networking to help car sharing) and leads on to new opportunities created by e.g. smart metering and new more flexible utility tariffs for residential energy customers. Jon Cape Customer friendly one stop shop solution – 5 votes At the moment, if you want to look at your options for domestic energy efficiency and renewables, you still have to do a lot of the leg work yourself. There must be a market for a large branded, one stop shop solution that takes the hassle out of it, and delivers a value-for-money, customer-friendly solution. In the case of heat and power generation, this would involve offering you the best solution for your property and offering you a finance package to install it for a low upfront cost - and either on-going finance payments, or where the provider actually continues to own the equipment and sells you the power. Companies are already doing this of course, but it is still all very small scale stuff. Charlie O’Malley Seed investment fund that is philanthropically funded – 5 votes Create a seed investment fund that raises all of its own funds from philanthropic / foundation sources. It can then do the high risk stuff, on the assumption that it will eventually lose all of its money, but cycle it through several investments first. This is the model used by Venturesome (should get John Kingston in on this conversation). Investments can be made as loans with escalating interest rates so that there is a strong incentive for early repayment from follow-on funders. Charlie O’Malley Kickstarter for green / renewables projects – 4 votes Kickstarter is the highly successful site where you post creative projects seeking pledged donations. You could create something along these lines for green / renewables projects. This would be particularly useful for pre-seed funding, where projects are not yet investment ready but may need some cash to mobilise resources. Charlie O’Malley Green Entrepreneurs Advice Bureau – 4 votes Similar to the Citizens Advice Bureau: you can go for free professional advice and connections / relationship broking.

I discovered that the Carbon Trust has something like this (http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/emerging-technologies/fast-track/pages/default.aspx) however, their version looks like a low volume version of it, as they only supported 24 companies in 2009/10. I am thinking of something that would be much higher volume - an advice and sign-posting service. The stage before the Carbon Trust service. Charlie O’Malley Consumer one-stop shop for information – 4 votes The definitive web site for (a) answering your domestic renewables questions (b) pointing you to solutions providers. Has this been done well by someone else or is it still a gap in the market? I checked out http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Home-improvements-and-products and it looks like most of the information is probably there, but it needs to be put in a more user-friendly process. The best thing would probably be a yes/no questionnaire to go through that would then signpost you in the right direction depending on your answers. Charlie O’Malley Community energy springboard – 4 votes Vision: an online platform to help community-owned energy projects to set-up and fast-track through the learning curve. The aim would be to shift from an isolated ‘reinventing the wheel’ approach to facilitate setting up community energy projects on a standardised basis. New entrants could draw down on expert knowledge from a virtual team across organisations that are at a more mature stage of development. This would be achieved by creating an online ‘one stop shop’ that helps enable all elements of community energy projects to be set-up. Features of the resource would include: • Step by step methodology to deliver community renewable energy & energy efficiency • An active forum, Q&A, webchat with experts, standard templates uploaded • Experience-based recommendations and case studies, organic like Wikipedia • Measurement tools for both financial & carbon savings, shared online training • Collaboration tools to develop buying groups & generate requests for quotations • Possible offline facilitation and consultancy to back-up online interaction Gines Haro

Energy futures lab – 4 votes The objective is to accelerate the adoption of innovative and potentially disruptive businesses in the sustainable energy market. By creating a bootcamp for entrepreneurs with innovative solutions for a sustainable energy system, sound ideas can be identified and supported. The entrepreneurs will be selected for the bootcamp through an open, online 'elevator pitch' contest with crowd voting plus an expert judging panel to select the entrepreneurs to go through to the bootcamp stage. The bootcamp, which could be one event or a series of events, will give the entrepreneurs access to experienced entrepreneurs, marketers, investors and potential strategic partners and large corporate customers. At the end of the process, we envisage a further cash prize plus the opportunity to pitch for

investment. We want to work in the space where there is proven, yet still unmet demand i.e. we want to be innovative, but also where there is a ready market. The Energy Futures Lab is like to come to life through collaboration with proven green energy entrepreneurs, existing funding and support organisations such as UnLtd and NESTA, foundations with an involvement in this space, professional services firms, angel investors, venture capitalists and strategic corporate partners.

Gines Haro

Sharing power consumption and production – 2 votes Communities to encourage sharing any new power consumption installation - domestic as well as commercial scale, shared boilers, shared wind mills, share combined small heat and power plants, etc. Alistair Gordon Green entrepreneur boot camp and mentoring – 2 votes Create a boot camp (one off event or series of events) for promising green entrepreneurs. You would bring in a selection of proven/successful entrepreneurs, plus professional advisors, to thrash through business plans and strategies over one, two, three day boot camps. Charlie O’Malley iPhone/android/blackberry app for transformative solutions – 2 votes The most climate smart app is here. Let's make sure that everyone in UK with a smart phone or web- connection download/use this app: http://transformative-solutions.net/ Incremental improvements in existing systems are insufficient measures in the battle against climate change. Many initiatives are well-intended, often in response to government policies, but these small changes will seldom contribute to the creation of a zero carbon society at the speed and scale that is necessary. There is even a risk that such incremental improvements might further lock society into a high-carbon infrastructure, making necessary reductions difficult or even impossible to achieve. Dennis Pamlin Community food – 2 votes Using community centres to cook local food for local people. Saving on food miles, power to cook at home and heating during that time. Not for profit but pay for staff (or work for your food) and local produce. It could be run along

side or as part of low carbon community groups, but just be social. It would need promotion and some suggested easy-to-cook menus. Roger Self-sustaining building (SSB): the global challenge – 1 vote Self-sustaining buildings provide their own water and power from local sources and are not connected to large scale grids. The SSB Programme aims to create awareness and it has proposed to hold a Global Challenge: “to find, demonstrate and promote the best examples of self-sustaining building practice throughout the world.” There will be a range of categories to allow entrants of all ages and abilities, from all countries and from all types of organisation to participate. Entries may be ideas, designs, or completed projects for homes, workplaces or communities demonstrating good self-sustaining building practice. Linked with the Olympic Games, the Challenge will create: o a high profile global awareness of the benefits of self-sustaining building practice o a permanent global SSB Network (SSBN) o a high profile awards event o a permanent virtual exhibition of selected entries available for all to see and learn from o a touring exhibition to display selected entries and associated materials at world leading exhibitions such as World Expo o a self-sustaining building practice database o a range of publications and teaching materials for global distribution o the infrastructure through which to repeat The Challenge every four years For more go to http://www.self-sustaining-building.org/ssb-global-challenge-2012/what-is-ssb-global-challenge.html. Chris Bennett Crowdsourcing competition or platform/community – 1 vote This could be a Green X Prize i.e. collaboration with the X Prize (X Prize are already developing something with Cisco: http://www.xprize.org/future-x-prizes/energy-and-environment). Or it could be an independent but similar initiative (something like http://challenge.ecomagination.com for example, or http://www.greenchallenge.info/ or http://www.zayedfutureenergyprize.com/). However, there are a bunch of these already, so maybe the more exciting idea is an open innovation platform for running multiple challenges around the specific theme of energy innovation (like an www.openideo.com could be done in partnership with Ideo, using a white label version, or you could build your own). Charlie O’Malley

Make dual-tariffs compulsory – 1 vote From an efficiency (and therefore green) perspective it would be great for the grid if more people shifted some of their power usage to off-peak (for example by running their tumble driers at night rather than the day). However, deterring people from doing this are several factors: * the default tariff people are on is the same price all day so there is no financial incentive * Changing tariff and having a meter change is a hassle * dual-tariff can be more expensive during the day than a standard tariff I am suggesting that the fitting of single tariff meters is disallowed and that providers are not allowed to charge more for electricity during the day on a dual tariff than they otherwise would. In other words make using off-peak power, nothing but advantageous. Back_ache Planning applications should only be fought with science – 1 vote Change the planning rules so that energy projects can only be turned down if scientific validated facts are presented by the objectors. Emotional and aesthetic arguments would not be allowed. Back_ache Insulation blitz road trip – 1 vote Do a tour of Britain doing insulation blitzes, making it a very rapid process (i.e. 5mins) to get the grants sorted and make the decision to have an installation done. Get the Scouts (etc) to go around all the local houses before you arrive to get a list of houses who are ready to roll, then rock up, train a small group of people, and blitz every house on the list. Ed Dowding Energy Users Association – 0 votes I'm certain that much of this is empowering the consumer. He takes his green responsibilities seriously, if he knows his effect, and is in control of it. How about a trade association for the energy user; all the supply chains seem to stop at the energy supplier being the customer and we are forgetting that it is the energy consumer that the supplier is supposed to be serving. Of course individual consumers won't be able to do anything, but a consortia or association would ... The Energy Users Association? I'd join. Nigel

Systems (in order of popularity) Less energy units you use, the less you pay per unit – 19 votes Can we spark a new non-level 'playing field' for energy company tariffs that tilts in favour of the low energy user, rather than effectively giving quantity discounts to the high user and wasteful! At the moment the combination of daily standing charges and the price structure of most tariffs mean that people who don't use much energy pay a high price per unit. How could this change happen? Would it need the Regulator to step in? Or could innovative companies like Good Energy and Ecotricity win business away from the rest by offering special small user tariffs? If we knew that we would incur bulk purchase penalty charges rather than bulk discount, we might watch our use more closely. Dave Hampton Every farm a net energy exporter – 19 votes All farms have great potential for producing energy:

- large barns suitable for PV systems - land often suitable for wind energy - slurry rich in methane, which can be collected and burnt for heat or electricity, at the same time reducing atmospheric methane pollution - space and machinery for operating community composting in simple and cheap anaerobic digesters - bio-diesel from oil-producing plants to power tractors and farm machinery. At the same time the current system of subsidies for 'red diesel' (diesel available to farms at about 30% of the cost for everybody else) should be discontinued to encourage farm made bio-diesel. The stick in the system could be: a) discontinuing red diesel to farms b) gradually increasing energy cost to farms Paul £40 billion/year green infrastructure fund – 13 votes I propose that the new publicly owned Green Investment Bank (GIB), which is likely to be created with all-party support in 2011, could be funded via measured allocations of annual spending authority from the Bank of England, rather than by (or in addition to) raising capital from private institutional investors via bond issues and on-lending their proceeds to "green" project developers. The new Green Investment Bank is a publicly owned UK development bank that is expected to begin operations in 2011. At the moment, the plan is for the GIB to raise most or all of its money by selling bonds to private institutional investors. The GIB would then turn around and on-lend the money in smaller chunks to wind farm project developers and other qualifying green infrastructure project developers, at a higher rate of interest. Here is the key innovation I propose: The GIB should get the money to pay for green infrastructure projects from the Bank of England, not from private institutional investors.

Under my proposal, Parliament would pass a law (perhaps by late 2011, within the framework of the legislation establishing the new Green Investment Bank, or as a supplement to that legislation) that will require the Bank of England to authorise the GIB to create up to £40 billion in new money per annum, generated via the Bank of England's quantitative easing power. Instead of creating fake economic growth by inflating the money supply through asset bubbles like the mortgage-lending bubble of the late 1990s and 2000s, my proposed Green Infrastructure Fund will create sustained, moderate economic growth based on building new, real, wealth-generating industrial capacity, low-carbon power generation assets and productive infrastructure. It will also improve the UK's balance of payments by reducing the need for oil and gas imports, by paying for an energy efficiency refit of much of the housing stock, investing in new-generation electric trains and hybrid-motored lorries, and other fossil fuel displacing kit. Jasper Sky Mandatory insulation/double glazing when house is sold/rented – 13 votes Germany and Greece have recently passed legislation requiring houses to meet certain insulation levels when a house is sold/rented. The UK should pass similar legislation. The cost of upgrading a house with cavity wall/full loft insulation and double glazing would be a few thousand pounds at most, which is small compared to the sale of the house and the range of prices the seller is willing to accept. Rather than spending millions of pounds trying to persuade a person to do something which saves them money anyway, it would be much easier to legislate it. Wasting energy should not be a lifestyle choice. Matthew Wood Give residents a discount on their bills when they agree to wind turbines being installed nearby – 12 votes Planning permission is one of the big hurdles to get new wind farms built. Giving residents a discount on their electricity bills, proportional to the amount of wind being permitted, would give them an extra incentive to support the planning application. Many studies have shown that new onshore wind reduces electricity bills (through what's called the merit order effect), and those living close to the new turbines should be the first to benefit. Energy Numbers Church roof sun power worship – 8 votes Get churches and their pension funds to consider leading by front and installing PV solar panels on their lovely large south facing roofs. (Yes I know they are listed.) Thereby generating income, interest, inspiration, and power to feed to the community! Dave Hampton

Eco-lottery – 6 votes Kickstarting a revolution means getting wide-spread buy-in and run a lottery. Some people get to win a lot of money. Most people lose a little. But they know their money is going specifically to growing the low-carbon energy sector. I just got back from India and lotteries are apparently the way the British raised money to build large parts of Calcutta, which are still standing today. Finn Jackson Lobby for higher standards of energy efficiency for appliances – 6 votes Idea from Mark Candlish from workshop: Appliances (white goods and consumer electronics) account for the majority of our domestic electricity demand. Also appliances in offices account for a large proportion of commercial electricity use. At the moment there is very little incentive for appliance manufacturers to significantly improve the energy efficiency of appliances, even though the technology exists for a massive increase in appliance efficiency without significant cost implications. As with the move to energy efficient light bulbs, you would see an overnight movement in the market which would have a huge impact on electricity consumption as the new appliances penetrated the market. While the replacement rate for white goods is relatively slow, the replacement rate for consumer electronics is very high and therefore you would begin to see the impact quickly. The proposed project is to bring together the right parties to create a lobbying campaign for EU legislation on this. This is very do-able and would have a global impact (as the EU market size is large enough to drive manufacturing standards globally). Charlie O’Malley OpenSource software to efficiently and remotely control heating – 6 votes Space heating produces a sizeable proportion of an individual's CO2 footprint yet our heating systems are also very poorly controlled. It's entirely common for heating systems to turn on when no one's at home or to heat empty rooms. It is technically possible to produce a heating control system which allows the user to do things like send an SMS to the heating system if the individual is planning to come home late (e.g. if you were planning to come home at 6pm but then your work mates persuaded you to go to the pub instead you could text your heating system to say "turn on at 11:30pm", hence preventing it from heating an empty house for 4 hours). Or the user could use their smartphone to really quickly and easily turn off the heating upstairs whilst watching TV in the livingroom downstairs, without having to physically go upstairs. The wireless hardware costs only about £50 per room and it should be possible to find a small computer to run the control software for less than £50. Hence it should be possible to buy all the hardware off the shelf to efficiently control a 3-bedroom home's heating system for about £300. The aim of this project would be to provide two things: 1) an open-source software project, built on top of existing tools, which makes it as easy as possible to efficiently control

common types of heating system and 2) a wiki with clear "recipes" telling people which hardware to buy and how to setup the systems. These recipes should be easy to understand for non-geeks and contain as few steps as possible. Jack Kelly 'Spray and Pray' venture capital fund – 5 votes We need to experiment fast and pilot multiple alternatives to current energy system. Therefore we urgently need a number of venture funds that will back alternative energy projects at a very early stage to get them to the point where they can apply for more traditional venture capital. Expect a higher rate of failure than usual. Fund might have to be part philanthropic and could have crowd funding/threshold model as employed by Kickstarter.com or Unreasonable Institute i.e. projects are pitched and only get funding if enough people agree to back with small amount. Model: Each year back 15-20 projects with between £10-50k 2-3 projects picked for £50k accelerator including mentoring Introductions and assistance pitching to VC or matching with interested corporate partners? (Based on anonymous idea from event on 15th September) Hugh Knowles Government spending – 5 votes To trade, transact and generally be a supplier of goods and service to the UK Public Sector across the nation we should introduce a rigid process of procurement that would force business to show a credible greenhouse gas reduction plan 3-10 years in duration, CRC compliance & performance (if applicable), traceability and evidence of product origin and other key factors. The UK Public Sector would spend their money on the best value offering – a correct balance of price, quality and environmental credentials AND mean it. No folding at the last moment and focus on transformation and long term value creation. The Netherlands (and China) are moving in this direction and are planning to insist on Cradle-to-Cradle thinking embedded in procurement policies. Neiharri Change taxes to encourage consumer investment in low carbon – 5 votes So far, the only taxes I know of which encourage this are fuel tax and car taxes (higher on higher emission vehicles). I think we should be far more radical with the tax system to encourage the right behaviour and discourage poor behaviour. The overall tax take would need either to be neutral or excess over the present tax should go to the Green Investment Bank or another ring-fenced investment. For example: 1. Emissions-related car tax needs to be far more of a differentiator than it now is. It seems incongruous having a cap at £435 for >255g/km. A more severe regime should be used such as car tax = (X/100)^2-200 where X is the g/km rating of the car giving 0, £250, £600, £1600, £3000 annual car tax for 100, 150, 200, 300, 400 g/km but £40, £72, £102 rebates for 90,

80, 70 g/km vehicles. We also need year on year increases in the incentives/penalties. And we need to transfer on to this system for all cars asap rather than having a system for older cars. 2. Emissions performance-related taxes on electrical appliances based on the G to A+++ system, in a progressive way related to the above so that the taxation is proportional to performance. 3. Emissions-related performance taxes on houses e.g. stamp duty or council tax could be based on the EPC system. Any excess tax could be ring-fenced by Government or local authorities for grants to improve house energy efficiency. Taxes on new goods and houses could be implemented almost immediately but taxes on pre-existing items (e.g. council tax) would have to be implemented in year on year steps. Richard Craig Community low carbon fund – 4 votes Government makes funds available to kickstart low carbon projects run by local communities e.g. renewable energy projects, food-growing, green industry and transport. Chas Warlow The grid should make power purchase agreements to build new clean infrastructure – 4 votes A fixed purchase price per unit energy would enable new clean renewable infrastructure to be built faster and cheaper. Denmark, Brazil and other countries already do this. The National Grid would sign a contract with the renewable plant builder, agreeing to buy their electricity at a fixed per unit energy (e.g. 5p/kWh), for the first 50,000 (offshore wind) or 30,000 (onshore wind) full-load-hours equivalent. Tenders are awarded to build new infrastructure, based on the lowest requested fixed price e.g. to get 1GW of new onshore wind capacity built, those invited to tender would bid at a price per kWh for the first 30,000 GWh of energy (roughly the first 14 years of power). Whichever company bid the lowest, would get the contract, build the windfarm, and fulfil the contract with the grid. Certain types of power can't control when they produce: wind, wave, solar, tidal stream and that uncertainty just drives up the borrowing cost to get this infrastructure built, which means we all end up paying more. This tendering mechanism removes the pointless uncertainty, driving costs down. Energy Numbers Run a competition to develop open-source smart grid tools – 4 votes Following on from the "smart community" idea, where Hugh Knowles mentioned that we need an open-source smart grid to pilot. Primary target would be university students, but it could be open. The place to target is the interface between grid and appliances. And the protocol needs to communicate two-way National Grid to households, in a one-to-many topology. I expect that within a household, it's again a one-to-many setup, with a central controller talking to all the households’ appliances. Although different topologies are imaginable.

Energy Numbers Low carbon city development index: supporting export of solutions – 4 votes So much of the CO2/energy discussion is about reducing your emissions (as a company, city, individual, etc). Why not focus on the solution providers? For cities, the UK could be the leading hub for a solution perspective. Lets challenge cities to collaborate beyond national boarders in the development of a low carbon city development index. http://www.lowcarbondevelopmentindex.net/ Dennis Pamlin UK energy storage bill – 3 votes Increasing energy storage capacity would help promote intermittent energy sources like wind and solar power and contribute to an overall more reliable smart grid. An energy storage bill was signed in California in September 2010, recognising that the amount of electricity generated at any given time is a relatively fixed amount and through integrating energy storage technology, the electric distribution system will be able to accommodate fluctuating energy demand. This legislation should enable an energy storage revolution for renewables and help to localise power use and reduce losses within the system. I propose that the UK should also develop an Energy Storage Bill. Julian Brooks Zero carbon cities – 3 votes Can cities be 100% renewable? 'Zero Carbon Britain' was the topic of the Schumacher October 2010 lectures in Bristol. The idea is that the best route to renewable energy may be through a city working with its 'green halo' or rural hinterland – its bioregion. This is not a proposal for renewable energy as such, but one for mixing rural renewable energy strategies (anaerobic digestion, biomass, pyrolysis, algae) with other more conventional renewables (solar, wind, hydro), in what may be an optimum mixture, and including low carbon farming and local food sourcing. The idea is to minimise the need for energy in the food chain and its transport, as well as provide a resilient mix of energy sources. Other cities must be having similar thoughts and this emerging strategy combines food security with renewable energy, looking to grow as much food as possible using low carbon methods, as close to the point of consumption as possible, hence reducing food miles and transport as well. David

Making energy tangible, accessible and fun! – 3 votes We are currently running a pilot with a system developed in Holland where we meter the consumption of the members and also meter local renewable sources such as PV, wind and combined heat and power (CHP). Metering data is monitored remotely and combined to show live data to users, showing live balance between consumption and production. Participants gain insight in their own and others production figures and consumers gain insight in where their energy comes from. Our ultimate goal is to give consumers direct access to a market which has until now been dominated by large suppliers, whereas it is entirely feasible to set up a system of using locally first, peer to peer, and allowing people who can't accommodate or afford renewable energy on their own property to invest in renewables close by or even further away. This of course requires this accurate monitoring to securely link investment, production and consumption. Hugo Schonbeck Back to basis-value of a product – 2 votes According to my understanding, logically this problem can’t be solved. The reason is that driven force of a society / country / company is unconscious. Most countries operate a capitalist system. However the monetary value of a commodity does not necessarily reflect its real value e.g. its energy value. I suggest introducing a new concept to value a product call universal energy value (i.e. only energy cost of an item, product etc). This would minimise usage of high energy consuming items, reduce advertising and marketing cost. It would also mean that items could be transferred through countries without either exchange rates or taxes. B. Gadinesh Stop making technical solutions before looking at social behaviour – 2 votes Big change requires broad societal understanding and endorsement and we know that large institutions follow society. So, conversations like these should be brought to citizen level and the threshold to participate (and to take action to make change) should be lowered. High-brow conversations and top-down technical solutions only will not lead to the radical change we are all looking and hoping for. Ctsa Promote heat recovery ventilation & exhaust air heat pumps – 2 votes Extend home insulation green loans and renewable heat incentive (RHI) subsidies to heat recovery ventilation technologies such as exhaust air heat pumps. Among the criteria for granting a loan should be a tick box for heat recovery ventilation. Subsidise advertising and encourage more suppliers for heat recovery. Reduce VAT to 5% on heating, ventilating, and insulation products including double glazing. WHY? All we hear about is insulation. But insulating is not enough. Heat recovery ventilation is necessary in our old drafty energy inefficient housing stock. An exhaust air heat

pump can recover this heat with minimal disruption by putting the house under a small negative pressure. In this way heat is collected from the air inside the house and from the drafts that leak outside air into the house. Wumpowell Create a standard low voltage circuit in the home – 2 votes I propose that building codes be changed to enable a low voltage circuit to be standard in buildings, particularly the domestic home. I refer to this as a Low Voltage Main (LVM). Most electrical items in the home do not require current mains AC voltage (EU 220v, UK 240v, US 110v) to operate and so a transformer is used to reduce the voltage. Transformers consume power and resources for no gain. A mains voltage supply (usually 220/240v AC) would be retained for high load equipment such as washing machines, freezers, ranges/oven etc. To allow retrofitting and staged remodelling, the existing lighting circuits could be separated at the consumer unit. CFL and halogen lamps would be replaced with LED or electroluminescent units. As lighting circuits are usually available in the loft, they are in the best place for the direct connection of PV panels without the need for high power inverter units. 12-48 volt DC storage would be included directly connected to the LVM, it would allow charging by solar PV or by a wind, water, biofuel powered generator. Alternatively power could be stored during low cost grid power times or when other sources are not available for use via the LVM. Mike Beardmore All new developments to be connected with three-phase electric and no gas supply – 1 vote Change the building regulations so that the National Grid has to supply a three-phase electricity connection and no gas supply, to all new buildings. This will accelerate decarbonisation through ensuring a local distribution grid robust enough for recharging electric vehicles, as well as one able to provide clean heating and cooking systems as we decarbonise our electricity supplies. A three-phase supply will be needed to provide sufficient power for heating, cooking, lighting and appliances, as well as charging electric vehicles. We have to wean ourselves off using fossil fuels for heating and cooking, and we have to do that soon. So it doesn't make sense to connect new buildings to a gas supply. Energy Numbers Building energy performance certificate mash-up – 1 vote Create a web application that takes any buildings energy performance certificate and maps it online. People will be able to easily see who the "heroes and villains" are and competitiveness might encourage improvement. Back_ache Disruptive sociology: eco-villages and the 'Anastasia' movement – 1 vote What would our renewable energy needs look like if a substantial proportion of us shifted to living in low-impact eco-villages?

Having already set up a conference in June, 'Zero Carbon Bristol' to look at how a city could work with its rural hinterland, I was already open to ideas of low carbon farming, hence perhaps an increase in rural eco-villages. We were already talking about an experimental 'farm for the future' that would include housing for more workers than on a fossil-fuel powered farm, as well as teaching and research facilities. Then I read the ANASTASIA books by Russian entrepreneur Vladimir Megré, which takes this idea to a whole other level. Megré sets off on a trading mission down the River Ob in Siberia (the world's third largest river system) and gets dragged off into the Boreal Forest, the Taiga, by a bewitching young woman, Anastasia, who is living very much in tune with nature and the animals. She tells him he's going to write nine books and become rich and famous, and the books are themselves the story of this coming to pass. She's something of a yogi, who appears to have special powers and she shows him how unsustainably we are living, and just how sustainable we COULD be living. This is not too fanciful in Russia. Already over 80% of Russia's fruit and vegetables are produced on family plots, no on farms. And in their first ten years, to 2005, in Russia alone, the books have sold over 10 million copies, and have led to the creation of over 50 eco-villages with over 100 families each. Megré's eco-village movement might well have solved the worlds problems caused by industrialisation, by having a large proportion of us shift back to very low impact living, with 99 per cent local food production and far less travelling. And it starts out – as he explains somewhere in the middle of the series – by cleaning up our cities, and surrounding them with eco-villages. David Disruptive technology - 'free energy'? – 1 vote What about TRULY radical energy technologies? 'Free Energy', more properly called 'Zero Point Energy' or 'Space Energy.' A succession of witnesses from military and aerospace industries testify that UFO sightings and cover ups are real, and have being covered up for decades, but now they are prepared to testify to Congress about it. If UFOs are real, then they certainly don't run on rockets. From a renewable energy point of view they claim that ASCs (Alien Space Craft) and ARVs (Alien Replica Vehicles!) run on zero point energy. The point of mentioning UFOs is that a little evidence can often go a long way. Around the turn of the last century there was endless scientific evidence to say that man would never fly, and which convincingly disproved the possibility of heavier-than-air flight. But once the Wright Brothers demonstrated powered flight, a new science of aerodynamics evolved, and loads of technology. Similarly, if we have proof that UFOs do exist, then new energy and propulsion science and technologies will emerge thick and fast. Most of us can only look at the first horizon - the new stuff that's obviously coming down the pike e.g. solar, wind and so on. I'm pretty sure the next generation will see things we have no inkling of right now, and that self-powered devices, for instance, will be an everyday reality. David Collect and save PV system – 1 vote A simple system that utilises existing tried and tested technology but would need some tweaks on the storage side: standard PV array generates electricity during the day that instead of being exported to the grid is stored within a battery bank (appropriate storage

system) within the household/building. The stored electricity is then directly utilised in the evenings/early morning via a transformer/invertor (so it is at 220v AC) which is when you need it and when grid electricty is the most expensive to buy. Any excess within the system is sold back to the grid. This would effectively give you free electricity but when you need it and when it is most cost effective instead of exporting it during the day. This system approach could also be used for charging an electric vehicle, effectively creating free fuel. Julian Brooks Revolving community power – 1 vote I want to see a system where local community power in linked to local investment and currency. Something similar to the Kiwah in Holland. In this model a community would invest in a local decentralised power plant and this investment would back a local currency to support a local economy. This forms a loop where money is better trapped in the local economy. Richard Heindberg has already talked about local currency backed by energy! Ovesco Supply us with renewable gas – 1 vote Introduce a requirement for increasing the proportion of gas to be renewable, and make the subsidies for in-feed of this gas to the gas mains more rewarding than those for in-feed of electricity into the grid. Gas has the advantage that it can be stored therefore it can be used to balance supply and demand on the grid. Delivery of electricity is seven times more expensive than gas in UK. Therefore gas based solutions should be sought to problems before incurring huge upgrades of electrical infrastructure. Ultimately fuel cells providing distributed generation will make power stations redundant. Combined heat and power (CHP) will come as a bonus. We don't need extra electrical capacity; our gas infrastructure can already deliver all we need. Wumpowell Trains and industry use of electricity from braking – 1 vote Much power is wasted and turned to heat when electric trains and other industrial process slow. Like night time nuclear, solar and wind power, this energy could be sold to the grid. But to do this we must adapt to using electricity when it available, in the same way that traditionally we used to eat seasonal food. In the case of the London Underground, heat from train braking adds to the cooling-ventilation problem. Andrew Lohmann Adapting best practice – 1 vote Ideas that work in one place do not necessarily fit well in new circumstances. We do need dissemination of best practice but we also need to filter the ideas through local culture and local circumstances. This filtering and adaption is innovation at the everyday level. Even fitting a solar water heater requires innovation to meet your local planning laws, water supply pressure and purity, local insulation and solar angle, the volume and temperature of water needed, roof structure and a lot else. We build local innovation by building community

by centring on specific community-level tasks and encouraging everyone to think and to do, not simply to wait for "innovators" to do it for them. John Harland British Sustainability Corporation – 0 votes Like the BBC but it funds green infrastructure e.g. renewable energy projects. The public pay a licence fee to guarantee access to renewable energy now and in the future. (Anonymous idea from a gatecrasher event on 15th Sept.) Hugh Knowles Flow batteries for grid balancing – 0 votes Create an open source design for flow batteries with large power and capacity that can be distributed around the country for grid balancing, thereby removing the need for coal power stations to do it. Back_ache