Category: Energy Reduction

Tamar Energy Fest 2018 – 24th November

Our 2018 Tamar Energy Fest was on Saturday, 24th November in Tavistock Town Hall. Thanks to all our exhibitors an visitors for helping make it a great event.

We talked about The Power in Your Hands to save energy, reduce bills, generate your own and help the planet, highlighting changes in the industry towards ‘smart’ … opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of homes, business and travel … as well as local generation and storage.

We showcased our progress with our OpenLV pilot including our work with St. Peter’s School and the Eco Club, our Energy Advice Service, our Bedford Cottages work and our Community Solar installations.

We were also delighted to be joined by Precious Plastic Tavistock, our local Community Growers and the local Eco Church community.

Our programme of talks ran through the day. You can download a programme here.

Our trusted exhibitors on the day included Mike Wye Natural Building Products, New Generation Energy, Utility Warehouse, ZLC Energy, and The Fell Partnership … more below …

Adding to the day’s fun and enjoyment were Red Squirrel Tree Care’s free woodland themed photo booth and our Energy Cafe with delicious locally sourced cakes … and warm and hot drinks … PLUS our Energy themed quiz for all the family.

Energy Fest Talks

The Talks were all held in the Rundle Room.

 

Our Exhibitors

We’d like to thank our Exhibitors for giving up their Saturday to be with us … including

​

New Generation Energy's logo ZLC Energy logo
red squirrel tree care logo
Devon Wildlife Trust logo

 

 

 

 

 

The Power in Your Hands – our OpenLV project

The Power in Your Hands – our OpenLV project

By Kate Royston

The Power in Your Hands is a local community energy initiative running in the Greenlands area of Tavistock for local householders and St. Peter’s School.

  • Want to reduce your energy costs?
  • Find out more about energy use locally?
  • Where our local energy comes from?
  • How bills could reduce in the future?

If YES, get in touch … Call 0800-233-5414, email hello@tamarenergycommunity.com or let us know your details via our Contact Form.

If you’d like to take part in our Householders Survey here’s a link to it online. It will take between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.

Find out more here.

Free Energy Advice and Support – Eligibility Criteria

Tamar Energy Community and our partners have some very broad eligibility requirements.

We want to be able to help as many people as we can by extending the service to anyone that either is already in, or is at risk of falling into fuel poverty.

It is open to all types of householders – homeowners, private renters and social housing tenants.

You only need to qualify on one of the points in any of the three categories (Income, Health or Vulnerability) below in order to be eligible for the scheme.

If you think you qualify you can call Tamar Energy Community on 0800-233-5414 to arrange a visit or complete our online form here.

Income Criteria

Anyone receiving one of the following:

  • Employment and Support Allowance
  • Jobseeker’s Allowance
  • Income Support
  • Pension Credit
  • Child Tax Credit / Working Tax Credit
  • Universal credit
  • Child benefit
  • Carer’s Allowance
  • Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction
  • A Disability Benefit (incl. Attendance Allowance, DLA, PIP)
  • MoD administered benefits
  • Annual income not more than that shown in the income matrix below:
No. of children / young persons under 18 in householdHousehold
 One AdultTwo Adults
0£14,520£21,780
1£19,140£26,400
2£23,760£31,020
3£28,380£35,640
4£33,000£40,260

Health Criteria

Anyone with one of the following:

  • Cardiovascular condition (incl. coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, transient ischemic attack)
  • Respiratory condition (incl. COPD, asthma)
  • Neurological or neurobiological condition (incl. dementia, Parkinson’s disease, MS, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, ME)
  • Musculoskeletal conditions (incl. arthritis, limited mobility, recently attended hospital due to a fall)
  • Blood conditions (incl. Sickle cell disease, thalassemia)
  • Cancer
  • Moderate to severe mental illness (incl. schizophrenia bipolar disorder and depression where receiving regular treatment)
  • Severe learning disabilities
  • Autoimmune or immunodeficiency diseases (e.g. lupus, diabetes, HIV)
  • Terminally ill
  • Other illness exacerbated by cold (confirmed by GP)
  • In possession of a valid NHS Medical Exemption Certificate

Vulnerability Criteria

Anyone in one of the following situations:

  • Victim of domestic violence
  • Recent bereavement
  • Moving in and out of homelessness
  • Recent immigrant or asylum seeker
  • Physical or sensory disability
The Power in Your Hands App

The Power in Your Hands App

By Kate Royston

The Power in Your Hands project will be providing data on the energy use of households, and St. Peter’s School, which are in the Greenlands area of Tavistock, and connected to the Meavy Way low voltage (LV) substation.

We’re developing a computer based application, which you could also access on a tablet or smart phone.

This will provide information about energy use across the substation area at different times of the day.

Going forward, energy companies will be looking at introducing tariffs with different rates at different times of the day.

We’d like to give you an opportunity to work with us to understand how this could benefit you in the future.

Here’s an example of information we’ll be providing. It’s in the form of graphs and shows usage on October 4th.

The first one shows the power used across the Meavy Way LV substation by each of the three ‘feeders’ (each substation has a number of ‘feeds’ to the different properties. Meavy Way has three feeders).

The second one shows the total power used by everyone connected to the Meavy Way substation.

Tamar Energy Fest 2019

Tamar Energy Fest 2019

By Kate Royston

This year’s Tamar Energy Fest will be held on Saturday, 23rd November in Butcher’s Hall, Tavistock. We’ll be open from 10:00 to 15:00 and look forward to seeing you there.

If you’d like to exhibit at the event and haven’t received an invitation, or would like to get involved in some other ways, please drop us an email (hello@tamarenergycommunity.com)

This year’s Energy Fest is focusing on Powering Change – we invite you to drop-in and find out something that can make a difference to your bills and sustainability at home /work and for the planet. It’s also about localising energy and the power of local people and communities to take more control over their energy use.

We’ll be showcasing our progress with our innovative OpenLV pilot, our Warm & Well Energy Advice Service, Warmer Bedford Cottages and our Community Solar installations.

Do come and join us … it’ll be a fun and interesting day for exhibitors, visitors and volunteers alike.

 

Insulating your Hot Water Tank

It is essential to fit a hot water tank jacket to any hot water tank which isn’t insulated or where the insulation may be old or thin.

 

Care must be taken to enable air to get to the thermostat(s) and the cables, and make sure that they are not covered by the jacket.

 

You may also want to consider lagging the pipes to keep the heat in.

 

If you have a hot water tank in need of a jacket, get in touch with us. We are able to install these free of charge if you are eligible for a free home energy visit.

 

For more information here’s a fact sheet from Centre for Sustainable Energy in Bristol and information from the Energy Saving Trust.

The Power in Your Hands – OpenLV

The Power in Your Hands – OpenLV

We’re excited to be one of seven community energy pilots running in the UK, as part of a ground breaking trial, to understand how the changes in the way that energy is generated and used in the future will impact you.

We believe there could be opportunities for you to have more influence on how you use, and what you pay for, energy in the future. That’s why we’ve called our project ‘The Power in Your Hands’.

As part of this trial we are accessing and analysing open data from the low voltage substation in Meavy Way in Greenlands. We’re working with local residents and St. Peter’s School to understand what this data means about current and future energy use and behaviour.

Access to open data on local electricity networks should make energy more democratic and benefit you. We’ll be working to see how.

 

How you can get involved

Take part in our Householders Survey here’s a link to it online. It will take between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.

Check out out the peaks and dips in energy demand and other data we’re producing HERE, and let us know what you think. We’re also developing an App you can use from your smart phone.

Sign up to receive email updates on progress and local events

We’d also like to hear from you if you are generating and/or storing your own energy or have an electric vehicle.

Get in touch … call 0800-233-5414, email hello@tamarenergycommunity.com or let us know your details via our Contact Form.

Newsletters

You can download The Power in Your Hands newsletters here:

          August 2019          Power in your hands Newsletter Aug 19 (download pdf)        View in web browser

          May 2019                The Power in Your Hands May 19 newsletter (download pdf)

OpenLV

The Power in Your Hands is part of a project called OpenLV which is making local electricity data openly available for the first time ever. The Greenlands area of Tavistock is one of seven neighbourhoods involved across the S.West, S.Wales and the Midlands.

Your substation is where electricity is turned from a high voltage dangerous current to the low voltage electricity you use at home. Thanks to a piece of kit called an LV-CAP™ we will be able to learn more about electricity use in the Greenlands neighbourhood and work together to change our energy use habits, maybe even saving on our bills as we go!

Knowing about our local electricity use means we can try to avoid overloading our substation and in the future, it might even be possible to have electricity tariffs which offer cheaper energy at off-peak times of day.

This video will explain more about OpenLV.

 

Energy use and Time of Day Tariffs

Going forward, energy companies will be looking at introducing tariffs with different rates at different times of the day.

Carbon Intensity of our energy

You can track the carbon intensity of our energy networks here:
https://carbontracer.westernpower.co.uk/ (Local region)
https://carbonintensity.org.uk (National and S. West England)

Devon Community Energy Impact Report 2018

By Kate Royston

Great to be included in the Regen Communities & Devon County Council report highlighting the importance of Community Energy in Devon.

Devon Community Energy organisations have installed 12.3 MW of Renewable Energy through 62 projects in Devon. One of the many positive impacts highlighted in the report available here.

Check out Tamar Energy Community (TEC) Community Solar here.

 

Look at the huge CO2 equivalent savings made by Devon Community Energy organisations from generating green energy through renewables!

 

 

Through energy advice, energy efficiency measures and tariff switching, Devon Community Energy organisations are tackling fuel poverty.

 

 

Partnerships and connections with other organisations enable Devon Community Energy to go further so that more people benefit.

 

The number of Devon Community Energy organisations has increased to 23. Collectively they employ 33 FTE staff have 297 volunteers and 3457 members.

 

Devon Community Energy organisations collectively have raised £14.1 million to fund their Community Energy projects.

 

 

Here are the key success factors highlighted by Devon Community Energy organisations.

 

 

A lack of viable business models due to reduction in FIT was the most common reasons causing some Devon Community Energy projects to stall.

 

 

Devon has more Community Energy organisations than anywhere else in England … find out why here …

Community Energy in Devon has created 33 FTE, jobs, raised £14 million & generated enough clean green energy for 3423 homes in 2017.

 

Free Home Visits for residents with Project LEAP

By Kate Royston

Tamar Energy Community and West Devon Borough Council are getting behind a new pilot project to help local residents save energy and money in their homes.

 

The Local Energy Advice Programme (LEAP) provides residents with a free home visit from a trained energy adviser who provides advice and support to make the home as energy efficient as possible.

More information here