Energy Neighbourhoods

Background

Climate change and CO2 emissions cause for concern amongst many residents in the UK, resulting in increased levels of interest in

Dedicated Site

Our dedicated website can be found at www.energyneighbourhoods.eu

Key Points

Energy Neighbourhoods is the organisation of a 'Climate Challenge' encouraging communities to work together and support each other to achieve energy savings through behavioural change alone.

Communities will receive support to achieve their goals by Energy Masters and a toolkit of resources including a website where they can view their progress in comparison with communities from across Europe.

The three highest achieving communities will receive a prize and the top performing community will travel to Belgium for an international awards ceremony

saving energy. Although the intention is good, many householders find it difficult to stay committed to energy reduction activities as it is often hard to see the results in the short term.

A previous feasibility study by SWEA, Parish Power, showed that householders remained far more committed and enthused when they worked as a team and had the support and guidance of experts and other members of their community.

A project in Flanders, Belgium, 'Klimaatwijken', introduced the concept of the 'climate challenge'. The introduction of a reward coupled with the competitive aspect of this initiative made it a great success, and it now provides a template upon which to base Energy Neighbourhoods.

The project will focus on communities working together, supported by host organisations such as Parish Councils, Housing providers and Businesses, and will include both Regional and International awards for the highest achieving communities.

In addition to energy saving the project also focuses on improving communication channels between communities and their host organisation through the stimulation of a local Climate Debate, where open and interesting discussion on the topic of Climate Change will be encouraged.

The experiences and knowledge gained through the implementation of this project will be shared throughout the UK and Europe, enabling more effective working towards sustainable energy in the future.

Aims

The aim of the Energy Neighbourhood Project is to inspire and encourage communities to achieve energy savings through taking specific action to reduce energy consumption through changes in behaviour alone.

Activities

The project will be delivered through the setting up of Energy Neighbourhoods, each with between 8 - 12 participating households. All households need to make their previous years energy bills available in order for a baseline consumption level to be defined.

Each neighbourhood will appoint an Energy Master. This individual will be trained in energy saving and will provide day to day support and advice for the community. The Energy Master will have access to an energy saving toolkit to assist households in measuring their savings and will take responsibility for the collection of energy consumption data throughout the project.

The energy saving calculation tool has been specifically designed for this project and takes into account seasonal differences in temperature, heating requirements and cooking methods and standardises electricity and gas to allow a combined energy saving to be calculated.

Once the 'climate challenge' begins, the Energy Neighbourhoods will have 6 months to save as much energy as possible through changes in behaviour. Participants energy consumption will be entered onto the website each month and neighbourhoods will be able to see how they and other communities are progressing.

Although the project will focus in depth on the participating households, the promotion and publicity of the project will aim to engage with the wider community on energy saving issues. The creation of these exemplar neighbourhoods will serve as inspiration and templates for future activities within the districts.

Anticipated Outcomes

Funding

50% of the project costs have been funded by the European Commission through the Intelligent Energy Europe grant fund. The other 50% will be made up from the development of local partnerships.

Partners

There are 10 partner organisations from 9 European countries participating in the Energy Neighbourhoods project:

•Spain•Germany•Belgium•Ireland
•France•Sweden•Italy•Bulgaria

Every country will also develop further partnerships with Municipalities, Town or Parish Councils, social housing providers, businesses and other host organisations to support the activities of the project.

Coordinator

Joanna Nicholson - Project Manager

[email]Joanna
[phone]01594 544458

Related Projects

Carbon Watchers

Energy Neighbourhood dedicated site

Potential Savings

The average savings during the Klimaatwijken project in Belgium were over 21,000kWh per household. This equates to average financial savings of over 99 euros and a carbon saving of almost 700Kg per household.

In the UK alone, if 10 neighbourhoods were recruited with 12 households in each and they all reduced energy consumption by at least 8%, the financial saving would be well over £8,000 and the carbon saving over 80 tonnes!

If the whole network of European partners achieved a similar result, the international financial saving would equate to almost £170,000 and almost 5000 tonnes of carbon would be saved.

It is hoped that the energy savings achieved through this project will be significantly higher than 8%, therefore these savings could potentially be much greater than quoted.

More Information

For more inofrmation please visit our Energy Neighbourhood dedicated website www.energyneighbourhoods.eu