YOUR HES
We are really excited at how much everyone is doing. The photographs and stories of changes you are making to your energy use are rolling in. We hope it is standing you in good stead for the future. Thank you everyone.
We now have everything we need to drive forward with HES as a people-powered climate solution. The next two years will be devoted to strengthening our independent, locally based, HES style energy service and making more long lasting reductions to local carbon emissions and fuel use. We will be introducing great new deals and services, a follow up membership scheme for householders and an improved support structure for local teams and new community groups. We will be sharing skills, involving all kinds of people, and together forging a community energy service that is strong enough to face up to the climate crisis and flexible enough to work with all kinds of related initiatives.
We also offer a range of training and consultancy packages for all kinds of people who would like to set up a similar scheme in their town or community, so give Dave Green a call at the HES office if you would like to know more.
Press Release
"The Household Energy Service - Doing exactly what it says on the tin"
Feb '09. Article by Michael Hughes, for Fourth World Review http://www.4wr.org
Bishop's Castle is a market town in the Welsh Marches. In the autumn of last year I went to the Three Tuns pub & brewery in the town, to hear Dave Green & Adam Kennerley describe how the Household Energy Service (HES) has progressed to find itself a finalist in the Big Green Challenge (www.biggreenchallenge.co.uk)
HES was developed in Bishop's Castle itself, growing out of an organisation called the Wasteless Society, which had successfully run a recycling centre in the town for a number of years. From the outset, HES was supported by local councils, the Marches Energy Agency & the Energy Saving Trust. HES is now run by Light Foot Enterprises - a Community Interest Company.
It sprang to life following a 2004 Carbon Footprint exercise covering the town, which, with no mains gas, old housing stock and long journey distances to other population centres, had a higher than national average household footprint. HES was started to serve the town and an extended area around it of 2,500 households.
HES works essentially by volunteers carrying out structured household energy surveys on friends and neighbours. These are sent for processing by the project energy officers. A local coordinator links between the volunteers and the central team. The volunteers receive an initial half day training with further back up and support available as needed.
The aims of the project are to to help people save money on fuel bills, save energy, cut their carbon footprint and do their own bit to tackle climate change. The service is offered free to encourage maximum take up, and funded by donations, grants, sponsorship and the volunteers time. HES sees itself as "working with the grain of community and of people's lives." It has grown organically and uses existing groups and relationships to reach out to the community it works in. The initial intent is to get people thinking about their energy use and starting to take actions, but it's seen as important by HES to keep them thinking and acting so that carbon emissions can be gradually reduced. Before the survey is conducted the client is expected to gather basic information, such as household utility bills, and set aside about an hour at their convenience for the volunteer to go through the questions with them. The completed form is sent back to HES and with a quick turnaround the client receives a report that gives details of their household carbon footprint, recommendations for energy saving, local suppilers and installers for services they may require to achieve these savings and details of grants and special offers. It is theis fine-grained local information that helps to personalise the individual's report. A copy of the report is also sent to the volunteer who then offers telephone support. Further technical advice is also available from the energy officer if it is required. the client is kept in touch with HES through regular newsletters.
HES are currently in the process of performing repeat surveys for a proportion of their earlier clients and have found some remarkable energy savings, sometimes in the order of 30 to 40% and one where, including flying, the overall saving achieved was 86%. These svaings have come from changes in transport behaviour, insulating buildings, changing energy source, replacement of inefficient systems etc. HES is now expanding confidently as Dave describes "the core scheme covers Bishop's castle, Clun and Montgomery - and seperate projects have been set up in Newtown, Knighton and Presteigne in 2008. We are also setting up in Llangollen and Ludlow in the next few months, and now further afield."
HES is run in a business like way, with quarterly business reporting and analysis to keep on track and Dave Green still intimately involved with developing the detail of the service, whilst Chief Executive Adam Kennerley has a strategic overview and, as their website reports, attends an awful lot of meetings.
I asked Dave what is the one thing the government could do to help schemes such as yours? He thought for a few moments before replying
"There are two strong energy focussed community groups in Shropshire, us and Stretton Climate Care, we both had difficulties getting initial funding - it took a lot of work - a small amount of money at the right time would have worked wonders."
Money is necessary but not sufficient. My hunch is that for any project missing the community grounding, hard earned simplicity and adaptability found in HES, achieving lasting impact is going to be hard.
