Tag Archives: Decarbonisation

NETTING ZEROES: WE SPY PFI

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Netting Zeroes (2)

As we wait with bated breath for signs of the “billion pound” private sector investment from City Leap, an idea that’s already failed re-emerges from the gloom.

Please step forward the ‘Energy as a Service model’ – dredged up from the dying days of Bristol Energy.

It’s, basically, small scale PFI where US multinational Ameresco, will fund heating and energy kit to Bristol City Council and then we fork out a service fee every year in perpetuity to the corporate monopoly for the ‘service’ they’re providing. This ‘service’ being heat, power and light, which could be easily purchased on a competitive open market.

Canford Crematorium is proposed by the council to trial the plan because there is an “opportunity in this to decarbonise the crematorium”.

So that’s all right then.

NETTING ZEROES: WHERE’S THE PRIVATE CASH?

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Netting Zeroes (2)

No sign of the private sector cash that’s supposed to pour into the City Leap public-private partnership to decarbonise the city.

One new project is “an £11m programme of energy efficient upgrades for fuel poor homes”, funded by the Department for Energy for just 150 homes across WECA.

Another project will spend £890k on heat decarbonisation plans and designs for council buildings. Funded by the, er, taxpayer through the Department for Energy. The plan is then to grab more government grants to fund the work.

Despite the smalltime public money approach, local journalists breathlessly report that shadowy ‘council bosses’ have told them “City Leap would lead to a massive extra 180 megawatts of renewable energy generation in Bristol.”

Bristol City Council’s wind turbines and solar farm in Avonmouth currently generate about 4.3 megawatts so that’s a 42 fold increase then.

Sounds likely.

NETTING ZEROES: PIPE DREAM

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Netting Zeroes (1)

The appearance of a thin City Leap summary business plan for the public is another outing for a proposed ‘Strategic Heat Main’. To run from Avonmouth where UK-wide waste is burned on an industrial scale to Bristol city centre where the shiny new heat networks are being built for the shiny new people.

This pipe dream pipeline run euphemistically on ‘low carbon heat’ is currently touted to cost around £100m out of the £200m or so the private sector may invest in ‘decarbonisation’ in Bristol.

Because the best way to get to net zero is definitely to burn – in working class Avonmouth – shitloads of polluting rubbish imported from London then use the energy to cheaply power a heat network for wealthy folk in the centre.