Imagine a street of terraced houses which are warm, cosy and affordable to run, without any upfront or extra cost to homeowners, tenants and landlords. What if we can have streets like this right here in Rossendale? We think that would be awesome and are working hard towards accomplishing this.
Net Zero Terraced Streets
The wording Net Zero has received a bad reputation because of unfairness that occurs in the move to net zero, greenwashing (when companies claim something is good for the environment when it isn’t), misinformation, lack of information, feeling being pushed or rushed into something, feeling overwhelmed by the climate emergency etc.
However, Net Zero simply means to move away from fossil fuels as they cause damage to our natural environment.
Net Zero Terrace Streets is a project which will create a community support network to help communities to move to net zero. Our ambition is to bring local people together into a collective, to bring accessible, affordable, low carbon energy and warm healthy homes with no upfront cost to householders.
Putting power into the hands of local people to move to a greener, inclusive, and more affordable energy system.
If successful, the solution could be rolled out further across the Rossendale Valley.
The Need
While, as a country, we are moving away from heating on gas, there are issues in urban terraced streets around space constraints. This along with fuel poverty prohibits the deployment of off the shelf low carbon solutions such as air source heat pumps. Choices for consumers are heavily restricted, effectively limiting consumers to the use of electric boilers which will prove both prohibitively expensive to operate, as well as putting huge strains on the electricity system.
Project aims
Help everybody in the community to significantly reduce their home energy use and create lower energy prices.
A plan to collectively transition terraced communities from fossil fuels to renewable energy for all.
A planned approach which accelerates deployment through collaborative planning with key stakeholders
Look at different cost and commercial models to determine the possible price for energy to residents and income to community energy organisations
We are working with multiple partners & stakeholders to build a ‘one stop shop’ where a commercial standardised, replicable, scalable model can be developed, then utilised across multiple areas.
Our solution:
A community heat service delivered through clusters of shared bore holes and ambient heat loops to provide more efficient community heating with less impact on the grid.
All infrastructure and retrofit will be paid back via a standing charge by householders, just like the national grid. There will be no upfront cost to homeowner, landlord or tenant.
‘Fairer Warmth’ platform to reach, engage and retain interest within the community.
A Community Energy Club that brings householders together to get access to cheaper, community owned energy
How it works
A Smart Local Energy System (SLES) which will comprise ambient loop ground source heat pumps (GSHPs), community EV car clubs, community provided storage and solar PV and local peer-to-peer Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) controlled by optimisation software. The benefits case of the system can simply be summarised that it would reduce bills and peak network capacity by up to 80% compared to the counterfactual of direct electric heating in individual homes.
The Smart Local Energy System (SLES) integrates ambient shared loop heating with community renewables and optimises the use of energy through home energy management systems. The ground source heat pumps are installed inside each home in conjunction with either a smart hot water cylinder or thermal battery. The Coefficient of Performance now achievable from the GSHPs in this configuration is 4 compared to 1 for electric boilers providing an immediate 75% reduction in energy costs and peak energy requirements. In addition, we provide upfront financial support to a range of measured and targeted efficiency measures to permit the use of internal heat pumps which further reduces the energy consumption. The system optimises with community energy to reduce energy costs and provide local community benefit funding. The whole system uses up to 80% less energy and can be ‘flexed’ due to the ability to control heat pumps and thermal storage and battery storage systems offering benefits to the DSO permitting more deployment in constrained networks and reducing network reinforcement. The system operates using the DNO network. Peer to Peer PPA trading binds in community renewables into blended tariffs and a Community Energy Management System provides the system integration, control and monitoring. Local car club and public EV chargers can also use the community energy, delivering local tariffs for community members.
