Visit to E.ON's new Smart Metering Centre of Excellence

Energy minister Charles Hendry (left) at the centre

As you may all know by now, the foundation stage of the nationwide smart meter rollout has begun, and will continue until 2014 when the mass rollout stage begins. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has stipulated that energy suppliers will be required to buy and install the smart meters for their customers. This obligation has led to E.ON developing their Smart Metering Centre of Excellence at Wyvern House, Nottingham, and I was fortunate enough to attend the opening of the centre on 9^th May, accompanying Charles Hendry, the Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change.

Upon arriving at the centre, the managers and directors involved with the smart meter programme presented us with the overall framework for the rollout, covering the number of planned smart meter installations, to customer eligibility for the programme. The smart meters are free to E.ON customers on combined electricity and gas tariffs, however, the availability of trained personnel to fit the meters has restricted the foundation rollout to the East Midlands and North West regions of England. At the end of the trial period, E.ON aim to have 1 million smart meters fitted into customers’ homes with approximately 7 million more installations between 2014 and 2019.

June Meeting: Carbon Capture and Storage

The new team outside DECC

Last week was the second meeting of our re-launched panel, with still more new faces. We quickly learnt each other's names thanks to Rose's hilarious 'burger & fries' ice breaker. After whizzing through administrative discussions, we split into 5 groups to discuss what we want to achieve this year relating to our 5 themes - SMART meters, Carbon capture and storage (CCS), Land-based renewables, Consumer perceptions and Women in energy.

Below is what the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) team hope to do this year, and what we heard from a member of DECC's office of CCS later in the afternoon. There'll be more about the other teams soon.

Carbon capture and storage does exactly what it says on the tin: you burn coal or gas; you stop the carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere and contributing to climate change; you stick it deep underground instead. Simple! Oh, actually there's a lot more to it than that... For a start, one option is to capture the carbon dioxide after the fuel has been burnt (post-combustion), another is to remove it from the fuel before it's burnt (pre-combustion), or a third option is to burn the fuel in pure oxygen which makes capturing the carbon dioxide afterwards a lot easier (oxy-fuel combustion). Then there's the issue of compressing the carbon dioxide once you've 'captured' it, then transporting it, then storing it in a safe place for... well forever, I guess! Basically, the technology can seem complicated. So our first project is to produce simple explanation, probably in video and printed format, of how CCS actually works and what the technology really involves. That's aim number one.

Aim number two is to evaluate the potential of CCS as a route to affordable, low-carbon energy. There are quite a few CCS-sceptics on the panel, but as DECC currently supports CCS research, we're going into this with an open mind. We'd be more than happy to have all our concerns completely dismissed. So we're going to do lots of research, and report what we find back to you in the form of a mini-report. It will inform you about the following so you can make up your own minds, as well as giving our own overall opinion and recommendations:

Feasibility. To date, there are no commercial-scale CCS plants in operation. A few small pilots exist, including one at Longannet power station in Scotland, which also looks likely to host the UK's first commercial-scale pilot set to be operational by 2015. The fact that the technology hasn't yet been proven to work is of some concern, but already we've seen that research is taking place around the world, and the industry seems confident.

Economics. How much will CCS cost? How can you even guess how much it will cost when the technology is still largely in development? We heard that the International Energy Agency estimates that reducing emissions and tackling climate change will cost 70% more if we don't use CCS. Yet, other estimates claim that CCS will 'probably be cheaper than offshore wind' per MW produced. A lot depends on what you take into account... for example the cost of development, the profits from exporting British technology, and the increasing cost of coal.

Environmental impacts. Ok, so CCS will reduce a power station's carbon dioxide emissions by 90% which is obviously great, but what about everything else - Coal mining, lots of pipelines, the risk of carbon dioxide leaks, and everything else that comes from burning coal. Happily, coal power stations already have very strict pollution controls. And we heard that 'on-land' pipelines will actually be 2m below ground, so natural landscapes are off the hook. Plus there is lots of research currently being done into the potential impacts of leaks and how to deal with them or prevent them. But none of this addresses where the coal and gas is coming from in the first place.

Health. Again, fuel extraction (coal mining etc) and the rest of a power station's emissions are our main concerns. But we'll also look into if there's anything else to worry about. Nothing has jumped out at us yet!

Sustainability. Taking into account all of the above, even if CCS is perfect, how long can we rely on it for, and is it fair to the rest of the world and future generations for us to do so? We learned that in 100 years maximum, the UK will run out of space to store our captured carbon dioxide! So we'll have to find another solution then anyway. Which brings us onto another question... Why not just invest in renewables instead?

Policy. We're also going to look closely at DECC's policies on CCS. How and why have they been created, and are they good enough to reduce the UK's carbon dioxide emissions in line with the 2050 pathways.

So if you have any concerns you'd like us to look into, if you think you can reassure us about CCS, or if you happen to be awarded £1bn from the government to develop CCS and want to help us, we'd love to hear from you. Just comment below or email elizabeth@think2050.org

- Tom M

Smart Meters: what, why, how and when?

This is a digest of the presentation on the roll out of SMART meters by SMART meters team, Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to the DECC YAP (Youth Advisory Panel), London, 5^th May 2011.

The Mass roll out of SMART meters begins in 2014 when householders across the UK will be encouraged by energy providers to switch to next generation meters which enable people to monitor and manage their domestic energy consumption. Unlike traditional meters, SMART meters provide insight into how much energy is being used at any given time and by which appliances in the home. Large amounts of data will be collected on energy use to enable providers to refine their pricing structures to offer flexible and innovative tariffs to consumers.

Established est. 1130am

Hello and welcome, one and all to our very first blog!

Its our very first as, today, we were told that we could drop the word pilot and just be DECC's Youth Advisory Panel! So first off, happy birthday and congratulations to us! As well as a big thank you to DECC!

Before I get any further I suppose I should introduce myself, I'm Rose and I am one of the panel members that has been involved from a time when a youth consultancy in DECC was just a gleam in one's eye, but not even 6 months later here we are, and i have to admit, its a very impressive day to have been part of.

I cannot tell you how many hours in offices or online have been spent discussing, finalising, drafting..planning, but we are here now, which is all that really matters! Aside from me, there are roughly 15 or so of us around the table, representing all sorts from all over, and we hope to be about 25 by the end of the month..Today we kicked off with a short discussion of how the panel would look for the next few months and also the description of a 'youth liaison officer' with regards to what that actually means!

We discovered that the Panel would be effectively a group of young people representing ourselves as young people, a member of the local community and a member of our respective organisation and then consulting with DECC as well a DECC consulting with us. We also managed to establish what a 'youth liaison officer' actually was, which turns out to be our fantastic facilitator Kirsty, who does a wonderful job at organising us as well as organising DECC as far as coming together at the same time and in the same room is concerned, no mean task most of us can tell you!

Now as this beautifully formed and united group of young people representing ourselves et. al we took a bit of time to actually consult on 'the calculator' which was a seriously neat bit of kit [we devised, after a bit of oohing and ahhing which will allow the user to create 'a path to 2050' with there own preferences to whether it is better to ban light bulbs or to make light bulbs as energy efficient as is humanly possible. The path to 2050, as you may like to know is our current focus, meaning that for the foreseeable future [until December] our work will be around this route, what i means to you, us and everyone else, and making sure DECC knows what you think it looks like..

[The road to 2050, by the way, is the idea of how we will all reach the 80% reduction of emissions by...[you got it..]..2050.., more info can be found here]

Our next session focused around our guiding principles as a group and what this would mean for anything we did, in particular 'the report' spelled as such as I am not yet sure what else to call it, 'the report' is as the name suggests, a report on the path to 2050, a document we'll create to present to DECC to show-case your views, however we'll also be doing it in a less papery, readingy type way because, if we're honest, no-one needs another document to read.., 'the report' despite the fact I don't have a name for it was the focus for the rest of our day, which delightfully was spent out side sat on the grass in amongst a park, rattled every few moments by London's building work - a much more glorious a place to talk about saving the planet than an office, no matter how many stereotypes it fills.. even if i do say so myself -[anyway]. It is proposed that we, over the coming months, will under take a series of tasks, much like the 12 labours of Hercules, but far more enjoyable; in groups of three or so, we will visit coal and nuclear power stations, wind farms and cow farms, the good, the bad and the ugly as well as the just plain crazy, with open arms and informed minds...we will visit, learn and share, also talking to the local communities around each site we visit to form a justified, reliable and honest opinion of whichever site we see.

Our second task is that of consulting as many young people as is physically possible, a task seeing us to freshers fares and school assemblies as well as CAT meetings and residentials a like, gathering opinions, sharing knowledge and accumulating the various visions of our road to 2050. By the end of our pilgrimage we hope to have contacted with thousands, if not, dare i say it, millions of young people, as well as local communities [both here and abroad] so that we, as a collective can form a report which can be released informing one and all of our..and your, work with the hope that we have influenced thousands into action, in the war on energy but have also given clear direction and advice on what we, the people [yes I'll paint a red hand on my face soon] want the government to do, i may note now we are also hoping for a formal reply from DECC...however before i go right off into a dream world, I'll talk about how we finished our day and what we want you to do!

We finished our day, surprisingly enough, by doing a similar thing to what I'm doing now, as we we're joined by Charles Hendry who is Minister of State for Energy which was a wonderful session to finish with as he seemed to be brimming with confidence in us as well as an unbeatable enthusiasm, which, as you can imagine, left us on a high!

After a bit of tea, coffee and water melon, we decided the date for our next meeting, which shall be at the end of July, so until then we will be toiling away online, perhaps we will even see you inbetween! But if not, look out for our next blog and have a fantabulous morning, and please, any comments thoughts suggestions or pictures you would like to pass onto us, we will accept them any time, just post them here!

Much green and eco love..

Rose x