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7th December 2007 Although the HEAT (Home Energy And Technology) Conference focussed on products that could, potentially, reduce the amount of energy used in the home, it was Jeremy Nicholson of the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG) who outlined the key problem facing the UK energy industry. According to Nicholson, nearly a third (20 Gigawatts) of the of the UK’s electricity generating capacity is being retired during the next 10 years and it is, in his view, unlikely that the current renewable technologies are going to fill the gap. He sees peak oil as being less of a problem than the stranglehold Iran and Russia could exert on the gas supply industry. It has to be kept in mind that Nicholson is an industrial lobbyist – if energy were given away free EIUG would no doubt be pressing for government grants to encourage its members to use it. He did, however, highlight a range of problems faced by anyone wishing to ‘green’ the UK energy industry – the main one being the intermittence of wind and the consequential requirement up back up wind energy based generating capacity. Among those trying to decarbonise the domestic energy sector are companies ranging from builders, Connaught Partnership, who are teaming up with heat pump vendors, ICE Energy, and an electronics device company, Arm, which has diversified into intelligent energy management for buildings. Connaught and ICE are intending to introduce geothermal energy systems into public housing. This is an area where ICE already has some experience (see the story on Harrogate Council’s geothermal energy project in this week’s CarbonFree News). ICE claim to have sold 2000 heat pumps in the UK to date. Arm is better known for its communications chip sets, which are used in mobile phones, PDAs and iPods. In some respects low the company’s home energy management is a defensive play. Around 25% of electricity used in the UK is consumed by households and it is predicted that by 2020 45% of this energy will be used to power consumer electronics. If this prediction does turn out to be correct then, in all probability, the government will start putting pressure on the industry to put its house in order. Two companies presented their approach to the fuel cell market. CMR Fuel Cells are focussed on the IT power supply market and hope to fill gap that is opening up between the energy requirements of laptops and performance of the Lithium batteries. The company’s product has been built around technology developed by Sagentia (who still have a stake in CMR) and it is planning to have something ready to manufacture by 2010 – it has £8 million in cash to get it to that point. CERES, which is the jewel in the crown of Imperial College’s venture unit, is closer to a product having targeted the less challenging microCHP market. It is about to launch a combined heat and power boiler that the company says is as simple to install as a conventional gas boiler. Quiet revolution presented their urban wind turbine and described a number of applications in cities throughout the UK. They claim a 18 year payback period assuming the wind keeps blowing at an average speed of 13 mph and that the government keeps handing out grants to users. The company also pointed out that their product looked good. SolarCentury claimed that local generation could reduce grid losses by up to 10% - something that EIUG were not in total agreement with. Alan South of SolarCentury pointed to long product life and low maintenance as key advantages of PV technology. Alongside the companies who actually develop technology and sell products organisations who provide a range of supporting services also made their pitch. These include the government backed investment house, The Carbon Trust and patent lawyers Marks and Clerk.
http://www.eiug.org.uk The conference was organised by Cambridge Investment Research
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