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Farm Energy Event 25th November


For further information go to www.farm-smart.co.uk/farmenergy


The Farm Energy Event is the first event of its kind which will deal specifically with farm energy use; ways to save it, equipment to reduce its use, and ways to generate it.

With costs at an all time high, energy is now a major item on the agenda of the farming industry. This will be the first event to allow farmers and growers to look at real practical solutions and the latest technology available to help cut energy costs and reduce carbon emissions.

Exhibitors will be offering products and advice to help farmers and growers to be more energy efficient; to save money and follow best practice.

The event will also be looking at agricultural applications for renewable energy, biofuels, and non-food crops. Visitors will be able to see first-hand the opportunities for diversification into energy crops, the generation of energy on-farm and recycling of valuable resources.

Key areas:

•Energy efficiency and benchmarking
•The most efficient conventional equipment and control systems
•Waste recycling
•Anaerobic digestion and biogas
•Energy supply and management
•Farm business advice and consultancy
•Biomass equipment suppliers
•Biofuels and bioenergy
•Irrigation and water management, including water recycling
•Building design and supply
•Efficiency in refrigeration and ventilation
•Efficient grain drying and cooling systems
•Field equipment use and management
•GPS technology

Energy Saving Week

Monday 19th- Sunday 25th October 2009

• Energy Saving Week is the Energy Saving Trust's nationwide campaign week to encourage people to save energy and help reduce their carbon emissions.
• A week long series of activity driven by Energy Saving Week and official partners
• This is its thirteenth year and is the longest established event of its kind
• Energy Saving Week is designed to help people adopt energy saving measures to reduce their impact on climate change.

This year's theme, WASTE examines how people are simply wasting money, energy and time - by bad home habits. The Energy Saving Trust will research, uncover and identify key areas in which we waste as well as create a compelling campaign to engage consumers to curb their wasteful behaviour and start saving energy through measures such as insulation, transport, Energy Saving Recommended, recycling and water saving.

Each day of Energy Saving Week will have a 'mini- theme' uncovering our wasteful behaviour in the following areas. Partners will be encouraged to support the whole week, but partners can also support a day that lends itself to their specific interest.
• Monday: Wasteful behaviour & Launch day
• Tuesday: Warmer homes day (Improving insulation)
• Wednesday: Smarter driving day (Transport)
• Thursday: Switch off, turn down, turn off day
• Friday: Buy better day

The Energy Saving Trust can offer
• On site Energy Doctors to advise customers on how to be energy efficient within the home
• One of our spokespeople will support and assist your Energy Saving Week media campaign
• Access to exclusive events as part of the week
• Home Energy Checks for residents in your area
• A wide range of literature to use as you please

If you are interested in working with the EST this year throughout Energy Saving Week, please contact:

Simmy Bilkhu on (0115) 959 7716
simreth.bilkhu@est-eastmidlands.org.uk

Get your community recognised

The Energy Saving Trust in association with The Guardian is pleased to announce the very first Green Community Heroes awards. The purpose of the awards is too recognise those community groups who are getting together and making a real change in their community by reducing their carbon footprint.
From renewable energy projects, street by street home insulation programmes to climate change awareness events to get ideas off the ground, there are people out there who are making a difference, people with bright, innovative and scalable ideas and the Energy Saving Trust's Green Community Heroes are here to salute them.
The winners will get featured in Society Guardian, providing national press coverage for your project.
There are 5 categories that community groups can enter:
Best Rural Community Project and Urban Community Project
These categories are aimed to find the best community projects in the country based in a rural or an urban community. In order to determine the winner the judges will review the relative success and scale of the project - and ultimately the amount of carbon saved.
Most Innovative Project
For this category the judges will be looking for projects that have taken a fresh approach to the challenge of reducing carbon emissions through a community run project.
Most Sustained activity by a community group
This category aims to recognise community groups that have been active and working on energy saving projects for a long time and have committed to and completed projects that have had long lasting effects in their community and significantly reduced their carbon footprint.
Outstanding contribution by an individual
It is often the drive and commitment of one person that brings everyone together and their ideas that bring community energy project to life. This category will recognise one outstanding individual and the contribution they have made to their community.
Apply Now
or for more information visit
www.guardian.co.uk/greencommunityheroes

The Communitybuilders £70m investment fund will help build more cohesive, empowered and active communities.

The fund will provide a mix of loans, grants and mentoring support to a range of community anchor-type organisations across England. It is designed to help empower citizens and communities by strengthening the resilience of multi-purpose community-led organisations across England through a mixture of financial and advisory support.
The Communitybuilders Fund will be organised into three investment packages:

•A development package consisting of bespoke business support based on an initial needs assessment and leadership grants of £2,000 for staff development and training. Each investee will be assigned a Supporter who will lead them through an honest exploration of the health of the organisation; help develop foundations around governance, financial systems, and leadership as well as core functions.
•A feasibility package consisting of further business support of up to 5 days and grants of up to £20,000 to use towards project development of a growth plan. Grants of up to £75,000 and 30 days of support will be available for larger projects.
•Investment packages tailored for investees who are ready to develop, grow and expand their role within the community. Investment will consist primarily of loans between £50,000 and £2,000,000 offered at 5% for an initial three year period of a ten year loan term.
Organisations can find more information on the fund, including investment packages and full associated eligibility criteria, and register their interest at the website below or by calling 0191 261 5200.
For more information contact:
•Karen Keany (020 7842 7700, Karen.keany@futurebuilders-england.org.uk) or
•Shaheena Sachedina (020 7403 2230, shaheena@forster.co.uk)

Building work on the country’s first straw social homes has begun in North Kesteven.

Work at the site in Waddington is now underway, with the foundations poured and work above ground scheduled to start the week commencing August 17th.
North Kesteven District Council is the driving force behind the construction of the first strawbale council houses in the country. It is overseeing the project in order to directly tackle the problem of providing affordable homes in the District, as well as improving the sustainability of the community.
Two houses are being built in Waddington, with another two planned for Martin. These three bedroom family homes will look like conventional brick built properties, and be the first ‘typical affordable low carbon council houses’ to be built by a local authority using strawbale construction.
Work on the main elements of the house, such as the walls, windows and roof, is scheduled to be completed by October 2009, with the project as a whole due to be completed by March 2010.
The District Council has set a budget of £110,000 per home.
This is approximately £20,000 less than a traditional brick-built property of the same size and design. A figure of £60,000 has been quoted in the national press. However, this figure relates to self build, where there are no labour costs.

Does the advent of the Office for Renewable Energy Deployment within the Department for Energy and Climate Change bring any positives for Lincolnshire? At first sight it would seem so. Its stated delivery objectives include leading on:

• The introduction of Feed in Tariffs for small scale (up to 5MW) electrical energy generation
• Improvements in the planning process for renewable energy
• Increasing the opportunities for power and heat generation from biomass
• Improvement in the capacity of supply chain, especially through stimulating investment in manufacturing and infrastructure for renewable energy and bio-renewable materials
• Giving communities the opportunity to harness renewable resources

All excellent sounding words and backed by the theme that the above will not adversely impact on the need to safeguard the natural environment (interesting debates in planning?) but it will be interesting to understand how rapidly and decisively this will translate into actions and opportunities.

The Green Apple Awards are presented annually to projects that enhance the built environment. Hill Holt Wood’s new community hall project in their woodland beside the A46 near Norton Disney can certainly claim to do that. Constructed with timber from the wood and using rammed earth from the building site itself the whole ethos of the build was to grow organically from the local environment and achieve a minimal carbon footprint.

Financial support from WREN (Waste Recycling Environmental Ltd) to promote sustainable community construction projects helped to secure the development. Together Hill Holt Wood and WREN won three awards at the Golden Apple ceremony including the overall Champion of Champions 2009.

Staples Group farm 10,000 acres of brassica crops for the major retailers in Lincolnshire and on the Isle of Wight. The group are proposing to install a thermophilic AD facility on their vegetable processing site at Wrangle near Boston to process the out of specification material and trimmings generated by their retail contracts. The electricity will be used on site with a small amount being purchased by a major retailer providing a valuable income stream for the group. Heat will be used to chill the preparation and pack houses and possibly also for a district heating system. The digestate will become a key part of the nutrient budgeting undertaken by the group to ensure effective soil management, reduced dependency on inorganic fertilisers and improved yields.

All the schools in Lincoln recently got involved in an event at the EPIC Centre where they leant how recycling in Lincolnshire can really make a difference around the world.

More than 200 children met gorillas, ate a waste free lunch and learnt a lot more about how they could reduce waste, reuse things they might have thrown away and to recycle more carefully.

Ian Taylor, Environmental Promotions Manager for the City of Lincoln Council, said:
This is a fun and exciting way to get a very serious message across to the next generation. These kids are the people who will have to carry on with the battle against climate change, so hopefully learning about it when they’re young will instil a sense of responsibility in them that we older generations didn’t have.


To see a short video of the day go to the source, Channel Lincolnshire as shown at the bottom of this article

The Link below shows how innovative role play can get children really involved in understanding the sometimes very abstract concepts involved in the cause and effects of climate change


To see a short video of the day go to the source, Channel Lincolnshire as shown at the bottom of this article