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energy standards for buildings jacked up in SA

The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) will soon be releasing SANS 204 to set new standards for energy efficiency in buildings. If implemented following the public comment period, this should raise the bar for reduced energy consumption from air conditioning and heating. It's not clear how this would be implemented, given the shortage of energy auditors, but SANS 204 and the forthcoming release of the Green Star building rating system by the Green Building Council of South Africa should create greater impetus for the establishment of an industry of consultants and contractors who understand energy efficiency.

schooling fine young greenies

German firm Schucco has developed a solar project at the Deutsche International Schule in Johannesburg. PV modules generating 3.48 kW, together with a solar water heating system, are expected to save the school 22,300 kWh of electricity a year, cutting emissions by 18,000 kg a year. That's great, but what I find hard to believe is the claim that the payback period for a similar system on an industrial scale would be less than a year. If that were true, we'd all be rushing out to install these systems. Do the Germans know something we don't?

moving products in cities

One of the challenges in greening transportation is in improving distribution systems for local freight. With the trend towards centralised warehouses and fewer but bigger shopping centres, transport is getting less efficient for the sake of "cleaner" distribution processes. Each individual business, such as Woolworths and other big distributors, will optimise its own distribution chain, but this is repeated for every other business so that overall there is more traffic. And more of the transport requirement is being placed on the final consumer, who must drive farther to get to the shops.

Amsterdam recently repurposed an old technology to make a dramatic change to the distribution of goods by sharing facilities among businesses and using less polluting technologies. A new inner city distribution system consists of freight trams that will carry goods in and out of the city on existing tram lines, and electrically powered vans ('e-cars'). The vehicles work with a docking centre that accepts goods from customers that need to deliver to the city, and one company prepares the goods for distribution on the new system.

Startup company CityCargo hopes to reduce the deliveries made by 2,500 trucks that enter Amsterdam daily. The system allows for greater flexibility without the negative impacts of truck traffic, as the new system allows smaller deliveries throughout the day, while the City restricts regular truck traffic to cretain hours to reduce traffic congestion and pollution.

microgeneration could rival nuclear power

One in five buildings in Britain could become mini power stations, with the right incentives in place, according to a new report commissioned by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Regulatory Reform (DBERR). A large-scale shift to microrenewable energy could save 30m tonnes of CO2, equivalent to 5% of all UK electricity. Such widespread microgeneration would need a feed-in tariff scheme so that homeowners could sell electricity to the grid, and there would need to be some combination of grants, subsidies and soft loans. But this investment by government would be partially offset by effectively outsourcing the project management costs and effort required for large-scale projects, by putting the initiative in the hands of individuals. This "distributed project" would reduce investment needed in more traditional generation facilities. On top of that, job creation would be more widespread.

feeling despondent? there is hope

Well, after a week's absence - I have been moving house and travelling on business - here's a feel-good Friday post. Wired presents five people who just might make you feel better about the future of humanity on this wonky planet of ours. News from the World Science Festival held last week.

another way to use biomass

Just to prove that biomass as a fuel isn't just about gathering sticks to cook supper on, Britain's largest power station has launched a project to replace 10% of the coal it uses with materials such as wood chips, sunflower husks or grasses. That's equivalent to 400 MW of power generation, or the output of 500 wind turbines. The station, Drax, produces 7% of Britain's electricity, and has tested injecting powdered biomass into coal-fired boilers.

Neil Crumpton, of Friends of the Earth, said using biomass in power stations or combined heat and power schemes was a better use of the resource than turning it into biofuels. "Co-firing with biomass is a reasonable way forward; it's a logical extension of what they're [Drax] already doing and I've got no qualms about it. If it helps build the sustainable biomass market in the UK, then all well and good."

UK standards heading for zero carbon houses

The first zero carbon house built in the UK by a volume housebuilder was unveiled earlier this month. It has achieved a design rating of six stars (the highest level available) under the Code for Sustainable Homes, which stipulates that all UK homes built from 2016 must be zero-carbon. From this month, all new houses must have a rating against the code, which replaced the Ecohomes rating system for the assessment of new homes in England. Building standards will be made progressively tougher, leading up to the zero-carbon target date. The UK Green Building Council has defined when a house can be called zero carbon. The proposal is "that a zero-carbon house must produce almost all its energy on-site or very nearby in, say, a communal heat and power system". House builders have argued that this is too stringent and that off-site renewable power generation should be accepted.

pedal powered taxis

Introducing the new-generation pedicab: a three-wheeled, solar-assisted tricycle that even looks cool. And for those who need to carry groceries by bike, this may be your answer. The main challenge with this ecocab is finding space on the road. A few of them may not pose a problem, but if these babies really caught on, traffic safety could really suffer. Less cumbersome than rickshaws, though.

measuring one city's carbon impact

In what is reported to be the first project of its kind, the UK City of Leicester will have its entire carbon emissions and carbon sinks calculated, and to have this compared with the social and economic wellbeing of its 270,000 residents. This will provide a basis for determining the success of strategies to reduce its footprint, and could become a model for other cities to adopt.

Academics will also look at how changing road networks, better public transport, maintaining green spaces and using low energy power and lighting can reduce the city's carbon footprint, as well as investigating how Individual Carbon Trading Schemes (ICTs) (where households are given an annual carbon allowance) would work.

the future is light

It's still a real challenge to find product suppliers who understand what products are suitable for solar energy. There's lots of general information on the internet, but what I need is local knowledge of what is available right here, in my city. I've been combing the local shops for LED lights. There are lots of LED downlighters, but even at Eagle Electric, one of Cape Town's biggest lighting suppliers, the shop assistants are clueless about how much light you get per watt of electricity consumed. I need to understand how many LED lights are needed for general lighting or for specific tasks, to replace traditional incandescent or new CFL lights, and this depends on the particular product. Not all LED lights are created equal.

So this morning I had an 'aha' moment when I read in the Cape Times 'Techno Times' supplement about LEDlighting, a Cape Town company that designs commercial LED installations and gives advice on energy-efficient lighting. If you need LEDs, Pierre van Helden is your man. The company doesn't have a retail outlet, but if you want to transform your house to reduce your carbon footprint, give him a call.

In the TechnoTimes reproduction of a Popular Mechanics article, Pierre suggests that LEDs will change the way we see lighting. Instead of an easy-to-replace central bulb in every room of the house, distributed lighting will become the norm, with fixtures embedded into furniture or other elements of the room. Since they can last up to 20 years, LEDs don't need to be easily accessible. Design options are more flexible, and clever design is more important for energy efficiency. We don't need uniformly bright light, but rather a lower level of ambient light with additional task-specific areas of light.