Top Tips to Lower Your Heating Bill

Sarah Kemp, who led our Retrofit event earlier this year, has shared a couple of recommendations with our buddies at Transition Town Shoreham and we’d love to, in turn, share them with you:

The Heating Hub has a brilliant website that everyone should go to before this winter with advice on how to lower your energy bill if you use a condensing combi boiler:
https://www.theheatinghub.co.uk/mission

Go to the Ripple Energy website to find out more on how green energy ownership is the easy way to protect yourself from rising energy prices. Investing in one of their wind farms can lead to reduced energy bills and can work out to be more cost effective than putting PVs on your roof. Investment can start from as little as £25!
https://rippleenergy.com/

TTW would also like to recommend the following sites & schemes to help with energy costs:

The Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) has put together an excellent blog with some great practical advice to help you prepare for the winter ahead amid the biggest price rise in energy bills in decades:
https://www.cse.org.uk/news/view/2716

The Warmer Homes scheme which has just secured £32 million for retrofitting energy saving measures in Sussex and Hampshire. Under the scheme if a household’s annual income is less than £30,000 and they live in a home with a low energy rating, they could be eligible for insulation, solar panels, air source heat pumps and more. The scheme is open to all eligible residents across West Sussex. Find out more: www.warmerhomes.org.uk

Eco Open Houses Video Tours Now Available

We are beginning to see some progress on trying to patch together our Eco Open Houses event that we had to cancel last year.

We’ve delivere d the EPIC tour as well as a tour of the Recycling Plant at Ford and one of our directors, Rolf Londal, has made videos of some of our wonderful eco homes. You can find them on our YouTube channel here.

As/when we are able to organise more events and videos, we will keep you posted!

Rampion Talk With Greening Steyning

Greening Steyning and the South East Climate Alliance (SECA) have organised an online event to give everyone the chance to hear the latest about plans to quadruple the output of the Rampion wind farm.

Join them via Zoom at 7.30pm on Tuesday 7th September for a talk by Chris Tomlinson, Development & Stakeholder Manager for Rampion 2. Chris will be outlining the latest plans for the new phase of the Rampion project and taking questions from the audience.

For more info and to book your ticket, please go to:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rampion-2-hear-about-the-latest-plans-tickets-161661685453

A public consultation on the new Rampion 2 plans has also just started and you can learn all about it here: https://rampion2.com

The Future of Offshore Wind Power – 29th June

Hear all about the ambitious plans to build a new generation of offshore wind farms all around the UK at this months Green Drinks with speaker Will Apps, head of Energy Development at the Crown Estate.

Already, offshore wind powers the equivalent of 4.5 million homes annually and generates over 10% of UK electricity by 2020. But with prices falling steadily this contribution is set to expand substantially over the next 10 years, with a new government target of 30 GW capacity by 2030.

But how will this be done, and what are the challenges involved? Join in the discussion hosted by Greening Steyning on Tuesday 29th June, 7.30pm – 8.30pm.

To book your place go to:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/green-drinks-the-future-of-offshore-wind-power-in-the-uk-tickets-156882751533

Moixa Smart Battery Worthing Campaign 2021

Do check out this video: https://youtu.be/Bgvo4dqQOCE from BHESCO

It shows you how we really can help to tackle climate change, one household at a time…. it’s an exciting opportunity for anyone living in Worthing (or west of us toward Littlehampton), so do take a look. The grid won’t be able to cope with all the added pressure of electric vehicles and air source heat pumps and this can help provide a solution to the shortfall. The choices we make now will determine our future so if you can afford to do this and would like to help lead the way, please give it some serious consideration.

For more info see: https://bhesco.co.uk/

The Local Electricity Bill Is Making Headlines

Power for People have announced the great news that the Local Electricity Bill recently reached 250 supportive MPs. This means that over half of all backbench MPs are now on board and also, the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats have officially backed the Bill.

This particularly strong progress led to the campaign being heralded by The Telegraph in this article:

Streets could become their own energy companies by sharing solar panels, under plans being looked at by MPs

Power for People are very encouraged by this and feel we must make the most of it to build more MP support.

If possible will you please share this Telegraph article with your MP and ask them to ‘Please write to the Energy Minister, Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, and ask that the government support the Bill’?

Support the campaign and Write To Your MP

If you need some inspiration before you write then the talented creator Bruna Martini made this brilliant animation for the campaign which captures the power of collective action and MP lobbying.

For more information see: powerforpeople.org.uk

Warmer Sussex new FREE webinar series

Warmer Sussex for RetrofitWorks have started an excellent, free energy efficiency retrofit webinar series with the aim of engaging homeowners on the challenge we collectively face to raise awareness of the need to improve the energy efficiency of homes across Sussex, provide advice on how that could be achieved and inspire people to take action.

Warmer Sussex is a not-for-private-profit cooperative, working with a range of community organisations, retrofit experts and fully vetted local tradespeople to help the people of Sussex in their journey to a warm, healthy and energy efficient home.

They are holding a short series of free webinars throughout February and March aimed at Sussex homeowners who want a warm and healthy home, are not sure where to start with energy efficiency improvements and would like to know more about what they could do.

The series started with ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Retrofit’ and this was followed by ‘Home retrofit: insulating your home’. Both are now available to view online: https://warmersussex.co.uk/recorded-webinars

The remaining webinar will focus on helping people to understand more about renewable heating.

Register for your free place via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/warmer-sussex-32416960333

You can also check out their website for further information: www.warmersussex.co.uk

Rampion 2 Launches Public Consultation

There are plans to expand the Rampion Wind Farm as part of the Government’s targets to quadruple the UK’s offshore wind capacity by the end of the decade.

The first phase consultation on initial proposals for Rampion 2 is currently in progress and runs until February 11th.

Rampion are keen to receive feedback from local communities and you can take part here: First Consultation – Rampion2

You can also visit the Rampion 2 website to view further information about the project and take a tour of a Virtual Village Hall exhibition where you can study maps and charts, watch a video flying over the onshore cable route options, find out how the operating Rampion Wind Farm was built and book a virtual meeting with members of the Project Team.