Radio Free Brighton

Vis­it­ors to the Centre for Altern­at­ive Tech­no­logy will have a new sus­tain­able trans­port option from this week. Any­one driv­ing an elec­tric vehicle will be able to refuel free of charge using a mix of renew­able elec­tri­city gen­er­ated on site and bought through the grid. The two elec­tric vehicle char­ging points are part of a net­work of pub­lic charge points around the UK oper­ated by Zero Car­bon World.

The Centre for Altern­at­ive Tech­no­logy tries to encour­age vis­it­ors to travel to the site sus­tain­ably. People who travel to the site by train get in for half price and there is also a dis­count for cyc­lists. These new elec­tric charge points will be avail­able free of charge for stu­dents, con­fer­ence vis­it­ors and the gen­eral public.

CAT Engin­eer, Jaise Kur­iakose, said “We can’t con­tinue to burn pol­lut­ing fossil fuels to trans­port ourselves around. Elec­tric vehicles can be run using renew­able elec­tri­city and are an import­ant part of our vis­ion for a Zero Car­bon Bri­tain. It is fant­astic to be able to offer vis­it­ors to CAT this new ser­vice. This cut­ting edge tech­no­logy means there is one more way for people to travel to CAT sus­tain­ably and it puts this part of Mid Wales on the elec­tric vehicle map for the first time.”

The trans­port sec­tor cur­rently accounts for almost a third of UK green­house gas emis­sions; cars are the biggest source of these emis­sions. Elec­tric vehicles pro­duce about half the Car­bon Diox­ide per mile com­pared to pet­rol or diesel vehicles under the cur­rent grid mix. This could decrease to near zero as renew­able sources replace coal and gas in the elec­tri­city mix. At CAT 100% of the elec­tri­city comes from renew­able sources either gen­er­ated on site by the hydro tur­bines, wind­mills and the large array of solar pan­els or bought from green elec­tri­city sup­plier Good Energy.

This week Radio Free Brighton is proud to bring you foot­age of 2012’s first Green­speak Brighton event — Being Happy, Con­sum­ing Less.

The event took place of Feb 29^th and was focused around two speak­ers, Andrew Simms who dis­cussed how pos­it­iv­ity can help us deal with the chal­lenges we face, and George MacK­er­ron, father of the largest sur­vey on hap­pi­ness ever con­duc­ted, who presen­ted an insight­ful look at what makes us happy. This was fol­lowed by a ques­tion and answers session.

You can catch the first half of the talks on Thursday at 12 noon and 12 mid­night, and the second half of the talks on Fri­day at the same times.

Last year, we were sur­prised by an amaz­ing fact: Many people who sup­port
green energy and are even will­ing to put their money in green com­munity
energy schemes, haven’t switched yet to a green elec­tri­city tariff!

We made a sur­vey to find out why, and the most com­mon response was simply
lazi­ness. And not know­ing how to go about it. If that’s your prob­lem, come
to the Green Energy Switch Day this Tues­day 24^th Janu­ary, 7:30PM at the
foyer of the Old Ship Hotel, with your latest elec­tri­city bills (and gas
bills as well, if you’re inter­ested in dual tar­iffs), and we’ll sort you out
on the spot.

The sur­vey also revealed a num­ber of com­mon ques­tions people have about
switch­ing, and we’ll be answer­ing them as well. For a start, see below a
use­ful FAQ on green tariffs:

1. Aren’t green tar­iffs expensive?

Yes and no. Yes, the aver­age green tar­iff is more expens­ive than the aver­age
non-green tar­iff. But no, if you think that:

a. The dif­fer­ence is fairly small. And it isn’t impossible that you
find a green tar­iff that is cheaper than your cur­rent non-green tariff.

b. It’s cheaper to pay now a bit more, than to pay for the con­sequences
later.

c. It depends on how green is your idea of green. You may find that
the stand­ard tar­iffs of some big com­pan­ies are already green enough for you.

To help you with this very issue, we’ll be dis­trib­ut­ing a quick guide “Green
Energy – How to make it cheaper” at the event.

2. How green is the green energy?

That’s easy to answer: As green as you want it! Your options range from
com­pan­ies that are com­mit­ted to a 100% renew­able energy policy, to tar­iffs
that have about 50% renew­ables, to stand­ard tar­iffs by big com­pan­ies that
have sig­ni­fic­antly lower car­bon emis­sions than the rest. We’ll help you
nav­ig­ate through the dif­fer­ent options so you can choose what’s best for
you.

3. Can I get a fixed plan with a green supplier?

Not cur­rently, but we can advise you on which com­pan­ies are greener,
rel­at­ively speak­ing, within those that offer fixed plans.

4. I have a key meter. Does this mean I can’t switch?

You can switch to another tar­iff, how­ever you are lim­ited in your options.
We can advise on which of those options are greener.

5. I really like my cur­rent sup­plier. I don’t dare switch­ing to a
dif­fer­ent sup­plier and be disappointed!

If you are a cus­tomer of one of the big com­pan­ies, all of them cur­rently
have green tar­iffs. You can stay with your cur­rent com­pany and simply switch
to their green tariff.

6. How do I know if the new supplier’s ser­vice will be good?

Thanks to the Inter­net, there are customer’s rat­ings on all tar­iffs
nowadays. You can avoid tar­iffs with low cus­tomer rat­ings if that’s your
concern.

7. What’s in it for you? Are you get­ting com­mis­sion from selling us
green tariffs?

Now that you men­tion it… yes, we are. If you switch to Good Energy,
Eco­tri­city, Green Energy UK or Coöper­at­ive Energy, you will have not only
the sat­is­fac­tion of con­trib­ut­ing to the devel­op­ment of renew­able energy, but
also the sat­is­fac­tion of mak­ing a small con­tri­bu­tion to a local com­munity
group ded­ic­ated to the pro­mo­tion of eco energy (that is us).

If you have any other ques­tions, and/or are already excited at the pro­spect
of switch­ing to a green tar­iff, please come to the Green Energy Switch Day
this Tues­day 24^th Janu­ary, 7:30PM at the foyer of the Old Ship Hotel, with
your latest elec­tri­city bills (and gas bills as well, if you’re inter­ested
in dual tar­iffs), and we’ll sort you out on the spot. And bring any friends
with you that should also switch their elec­tri­city tariff.

Brighton & Hove Leader attacks gov­ern­ment over plans to slash solar energy Feed In Tariff

Brighton & Hove City Coun­cil Leader Bill Ran­dall said:

“The gov­ern­ment plans, if true, are incred­ibly unhelp­ful and will ser­i­ously dam­age the busi­ness case for Brighton & Hove City Council’s ambi­tious solar energy pro­gramme on pub­lic build­ings and coun­cil houses. A tar­iff reduc­tion of this size threatens our plans to roll out eco-friendly energy that will help provide cheaper heat­ing and elec­tri­city for the city’s most vul­ner­able at a time of rising energy costs.

“We were look­ing to this pro­gramme to partly off­set gov­ern­ment cuts to our budget, whilst also redu­cing our car­bon foot­print, tack­ling fuel poverty and cre­at­ing local jobs.”

Cllr Ran­dall was com­ment­ing fol­low­ing reports that the Depart­ment of Energy and Cli­mate Change pro­poses to reduce the Feed in Tar­iff from the cur­rent 43p rate to 21p with the cur­rent higher rate only applic­able for schemes registered prior to 8 December.

Below is the ori­ginal press release for Brighton & Hove’s green energy plans.

‘Biggest ever’ solar plan for Brighton & Hove 

Schools, offices and car parks will become mini electricity-generating sta­tions under one of the biggest pro­grammes of solar panel install­a­tion so far seen in Brighton & Hove.

The city coun­cil has sur­veyed its build­ings look­ing for ideal sites for photo­vol­taic (PV) pan­els.  Offi­cials have drawn up a list of 40 non-residential prop­er­ties.  Twenty three are thought likely to be money-spinners with another 17 regarded as ‘possibles’. 

 They include schools, office build­ings, leis­ure centres and multi-storey car parks.     

In a sep­ar­ate move, the author­ity is also look­ing at using coun­cil homes and blocks of flats, poten­tially increas­ing the num­ber of build­ings gen­er­at­ing power. 

Among non-residential build­ings thought to be most prom­ising are Blatch­ing­ton Mill School, Rus­sell Road car park and the Prince Regent swim­ming complex. 

Under the plan, which was approved by cab­inet on June 9, the coun­cil would bor­row £2.6m to fin­ance the plan, repaid by earn­ings from the Feed-in Tar­iff (FIT) – pay­ments for selling power back to the national grid.   

Solar PV pan­els being installed today earn their own­ers 41 pence per kilowatt-hour when sur­plus power is sold.  They also cut elec­tri­city bills. 

If all forty sites were used, pub­lic cof­fers would be some­where between £40,000 and £160,000 richer annu­ally – depend­ing on levels of sun­shine.  This would include cut­ting the council’s elec­tri­city bill by up to £23,000 a year. 

Par­ti­cip­at­ing schools would be up to £40,000 bet­ter off, from sav­ings to util­ity bills. 

Install­a­tions will take place before April 1 2012 as the coun­cil is in a hurry to beat likely changes to the FIT pay­ments next year.

Cab­inet coun­cil­lor for fin­ance Jason Kit­cat said:  “I’m delighted that one of the new administration’s first decisions will be our city’s largest-ever roll out of solar pan­els. With this pro­ject the coun­cil will gen­er­ate new funds to help off­set gov­ern­ment cuts to our budget, whilst also redu­cing our car­bon footprint. 

“We would encour­age every­one in the city to con­sider whether they too could use renew­ables to save money and reduce emis­sions. Brighton & Hove can be a hub for green indus­tries, and we plan to lead by example.”

All install­a­tions would be flat pan­els on suit­able south-facing roofs, free from risks of van­dal­ism or overshadowing.

**********

Look out for updates on this in the near future.

Start­ing this Thursday 29^th Septem­ber at 7.30pm, Car­oline Lucas will be present­ing her very own radio show on Radio Free Brighton.

Hear Caroline’s pro­gramme again on our Mix Cloud site:    http://www.mixcloud.com/RadioFreeBrighton/caroline-lucas-show-29–09-11/

As Brighton Pavillion’s MP, and the Green Party’s first Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, we are delighted to have her become a part of RFB.

Car­oline will be dis­cuss­ing cur­rent affairs that affect her as an MP but also as a Brighton resident.

www.carolinelucas.com

Be sure to tune in on Thurs 29^th Sept 7.30pm.