New technologies glossary
Bio-energy - Biomass is derived from plant material and animal residues/wastes. It can be used to generate electricity and/or heat, and to produce transport fuel. This energy is called bio-energy. There’s a load of ‘biomass’ that can be used for energy purposes eg straw and crop residues, crops specially grown for energy production – willow, oil seed rape and wastes from a range of sources including food production. The nature of the fuel will determine the way that energy can best be recovered from it.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) - Carbon dioxide contributes around 60% of the potential global warming effect of human-made emissions of greenhouse gases worldwide. Not surprising then, that it’s global enemy no.1. The burning of so called fossil fuels-oil, gas, coal - releases CO2 and increases its concentration in the atmosphere.
Carbon Trust - This is an independent, not-for-profit company set up by Government with support from businesses to encourage and promote the development of low carbon technologies. Its key role is to support British Business in reducing carbon emissions through funding, support of technological innovation and by encouraging more efficient working practices.
Combined cycle gas turbines - These use both gas and steam turbine cycles in a single plant to produce electricity with high conversion efficiencies and relatively low emissions.
Combined heat and power (CHP) - CHP is the simultaneous generation of useable heat and power in a single process, thereby discarding less waste than conventional generation.
Decent Homes Standard - This has been set by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) and the Decent Homes Standard is a minimum standard that all social housing in England should achieve by 2010. A decent home is ‘wind and weather tight, warm and has modern facilities’.
Energy Saving Trust (EST) - The EST is a not-for-profit organisation set up and largely funded by Government to manage a number of programmes to improve energy efficiency, particularly in the domestic sector.
Fuel Cells - Fuel cells produce electricity from hydrogen and air, with water as the only emission. Potential applications include stationary power generation, transport (replacing the internal combustion engine) and portable power (replacing batteries).
Fuel poverty - The common definition of a ‘fuel poor’ household is one needing to spend in excess of 10% of household income to achieve a satisfactory heating regime ( 21°C in the living room and 18°C in other occupied rooms)
Greenhouse gas - A greenhouse gas is one that contributes to global warming. The most significant greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP) - Ground source heat pumps do exactly what they say they do – they extract heat from the ground – either by circulating water (or another fluid) through pipes buried in the ground in trenches, or in vertical boreholes. The pipes extract heat from the ground and a heat exchanger within the pump, extracts the heat from this fluid. The compression cycle is employed (also used in refrigerators) to then raise the temperature to supply hot water to the building.
Heat pumps - These work like a refrigerator moving heat from one place to another. Heat pumps can provide space heating, cooling, water heating and sometimes exhaust air heat recovery.
Heat recovery - A technique for maximising efficiency by making use of heat that would otherwise be wasted, eg in hot exhaust gases.
Micro-CHP - CHP at the scale of a single dwelling, used in place of a domestic central heating boiler.
Photovoltaics (PV) - This is the direct conversion of solar radiation - sunlight - into electricity by the interaction of light with the electrons in a semi-conductor device or cell.
Renewable energy - Energy flows that occur naturally and repeatedly in the environment. This includes solar power, wind, wave and tidal power and hydroelectricity. Solid renewable energy sources include energy crops and other biomass. Gaseous renewables come from landfill and sewage waste.
Renewables Obligation (RO) - This is the obligation placed on electricity suppliers to deliver a stated proportion of their electricity from eligible renewable energy sources.
Solar thermal/solar hot water - A system for using solar radiation to heat water, typically roof-mounted panels connected with pipes to a storage tank. Worcester’s Greenskies 240 product is a solar thermal system.
Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) - The SAP is the Government’s recommended system for energy rating of dwellings. It is used for calculating the SAP rating, on a scale of 1-100, based on the annual energy costs for space and water heating; and for calculating the Carbon Index, on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0, based on the annual CO2 emissions associated with space and water heating.
Sustainable Development Commission - The Commission’s main role is to advocate sustainable development across all sectors in the UK, review progress towards it and build consensus on the actions needed if further progress is to be achieved.
Units of Energy - Energy is the ability to do work. 1 Watt hour (Wh) is the amount of energy used by a 1W device operating for an hour. A kilowatt-hour is 1,000Wh and a megawatt-hour is 1,000,000Wh.