Transition Town Dorchester’s first energy ‘open space’ event was voted a great success by participants. It featured an introduction to peak oil and climate change by Toby Booth, who looked forward to Dorchester’s very own Energy Descent Plan, and brief talks by Cllr Nicki Barker, energy advisor Emily Bullock, and Renewables Development Officer Pete West. Nicki surprised us by advocating the River Frome as a prime target for a heat exchanger, Emily challenged the audience with quiz questions which we were too polite to answer (or may be we just didn’t know?), and Pete tempted everyone with success stories from Denmark and Austria.

The ‘open space’ discussion method introduced by Marion got top marks from all participants, and generated lots of laughter, earnest technical exchanges, and some ideas for possible projects. Everyone seemed to have time to have their say, and there was also plenty of time to network over the exceptional peanut cookies and tea laid on by Tess. Prize idea of the day is that we need a recipe page on our website please!

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Question: Are you aware of the energy return on energy invested to our future as a community? How can we have sustainable, renewable energy, when the hardware/production relies on oil?

Responses

• Technologies will use less energy
• Prioritising the use of oil – eg for public transport over private car use
• Energy crisis will catalyse innovation and development.
• Biomass crops should not be grown on food producing land
• We need to be looking at what sort of future we want and then plan how to get there, instead of stumbling forward, accepting compromises and short term solutions, like nuclear power.

Responses

• Ground Source Heat Pump – need 100m length of piping – not realistic
• Air Source Heat Pump – no-one had any strong info
• Wind – possible but many considerations
• 12V system for shed lighting might be possible with small (40cm-1m as used on boats eg Rutlands) best bet was to invest in community scheme where wind conditions were more favourable
• turbines need 10x clear distance as their height to capture ‘clean wind’
• turbines have to hunt (frequently change direction) to meet turbulent wind
• think of community as ‘communtity of wind-power enthusiasts’ not confined to geographical
• £1000 invested in a community scheme would pay dividends many times greater than same investment in small turbine
• less than 20kw is really only for show/education
• electricity prices will continue to rise – more than £1/unit within 5 years
• investing in wind turbines as a way to hedge rising costs
• fairly striaght forward to work out how much to invest in to cover personal use
• double rocs (renewable obligation certificates) now available for microgeneration
• is this as well as or instead of feed-in-tariff?
• Solar HW – worthwhile but much longer pay-back times
• Must have S-SW facing roof approx 50-55 degree pitch

Try REIC reic.co.uk or orgs like energy4all.co.uk

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Responses

• heard that >15miles was no carbon benefit back-of-envelope caculation gave 1.5% per tonne-mile ie. >66miles would have simple ERoEI<1 (energy return on energy invested)
• Mainly SW winds in Dorchester
• Ideal places south of Poundbury
• Have small farm of 10-15 x 20kw/50kw turbines or a line of them on the embankment
• Vertical axis turbines now available which are suited to turbulent sites but they only capture 1/3 of the same wind that a conventional turbine would

Responses

• A web-based calculator for a whole community, like the actonco2 one, to measure the carbon footprint of a whole community
• Figures etc available to see if it is going up or down and ideas of how to improve
• Pledges, and then periodic reminders to see if targets have been reached
• What are the barriers to improvements?
• An area on the website for problem solving

Responses

• The answer to this consisted of diagrams!
• You need two coils in the water tank, one from each heat source. They can run separately, or together, on a warm January day.

Responses

Cavity walls

• One person recommended : Yes, use polystyrene balls instead of mineral fibre (no condensation), but ensure no wires in cavity.
• Other options: look at practice in Pembrokeshire (also zone 4, like Dorset, for exposure / dampness risk); look at Sempatex for insulation on inside leaf of wall.

Other home improvement issues:

• water conservation, hard to get information on options for e.g. rainwater flushing of loos without major works like digging up whole garden to bury a storage tank. A contact was suggested who could be commissioned to advise via the LETS group.
• solar thermal in conservation areas , hard to get planning permission. Needs moral support by a group doing it?
• Community action on housing stock

People need to know :

• what to do first
• the payback time
• cost etc.

Advice must be independent e.g. Dorset County Council or an authorised advisor

…project with volunteers? or should it be a business opportunity ? Could look at examples e.g. Heatseeker thermal imaging; Transition Town Lewes energy project.

• This is a good time because council has set example on public buildings, people have seen village halls
• recession and fuel prices is making people rethink how they use their money.
• Attitudes have shifted on recycling; it has become normalised – so attitude change is possible.

• seek advice from Transition Towns Lewes and Chepstow on their insulation projects
• approach the community partnership at district level (incl for funds?)
• ask Dorset Reclaim how they work (example project with mix of funded and volunteer resources)
• find out how Reading used ‘Heatseekers’ thermal imaging van to inform people – was there greater take-up?

This local energy event, and the actions arising from it aimed to help:

• Anyone wanting to reduce their carbon foot-print, energy consumption and stay warm through energy efficiency measures
• Families and people looking to save money by reducing their energy bills
• The wider Dorchester community to investigate local micro-generation options and rebalance the take-up of grant funding for energy solutions to make sure Dorchester gets it’s fair share
• Provide access to energy information
• By giving out free energy saving light bulbs from Dorset Energy Advice Centre

13:30 Doors open – 14:00 Welcome introduction – 14:10 Energy experts – Pete West to speak on renewable energy and Emily Bullock on energy efficiency – 14:40 Questions, general discussion – 14:55 Introduction to ‘open space’ – 15:00 Tea – 15:20 Open space discussion – 16:20 Gather up main points, summarise, next steps / future dates – 16:45 Finish

The Venue was – Dorset Youth Association (maximum capacity 60), Lubbecke Way, Dorchester

This event was free; donations to Transition Town Dorchester were kindly received and help to provide future events.