Pilot Energy Action Areas

The London Energy Partnership has been tasked with setting up and delivering the Mayor’s Energy Action Areas to act as exemplar showcase low carbon developments in London. There has been huge interest from developers and local authorities that have put themselves forward as pilot Energy Action Areas (EAAs), and the Task Group have selected four Areas from the expressions of interested received.

These four pilot areas are Merton, Barking, New Wembley, and a joint proposal from Southwark of the Elephant & Castle regeneration area and the Southwark concerto community. Funding and support for the pilot EAAs programme has been secured through the London Energy Partnership and the pilot Areas are expected to deliver carbon savings ranging from 40 per cent - 60 per cent; the Southwark concerto community for example aim to achieve carbon savings in excess of 60 per cent by 2010.

Energy Action Areas (EAAs) are essentially a discrete neighbourhood or regeneration area, within which a number of the elements of the Mayor’s Energy Strategy can be brought into operation simultaneously. London needs major energy projects implemented on the ground, which tackle a range of energy issues all at once. The Mayor has proposed Energy Action Areas as a mechanism to enable this.

This will enable a showcase of how the strategy could be applied and replicated more widely, to demonstrate integration opportunities between sustainable energy technologies and specific built environments, e.g. a new build housing development powered by a community network of biomass CHP. Whilst a number of elements are likely to be common across each of the areas, e.g. use of local heat distribution networks, CCHP, renewable technologies, carbon reduction and green procurement processes, each will be expected to demonstrate unique characteristics in terms of the technical, financial and partnership approaches.

Examples of these unique approaches include the collection of organic waste from 10,000 households in the Southwark concerto community to be treated through anaerobic digestion and distributed back to the same households through a biogas CHP community heating network. Through demonstrating this holistic approach to both sustainable energy delivery and waste reduction through the pilot EAA, it is anticipated that other developments will replicate the process and learn from it.

Energy Action Areas information leaflet PDF
Energy Action Areas information leaflet RTF

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