Emission Reductions

We also have anecdotal evidence that there has been a spin off effect, with friends and neighbours of those households receiving an energy audit, also taking some energy saving measures. However, we have no data to quantify this.

Fifteen ‘Neighbourhood Energy Assistants’ were also trained and carried out basic home energy awareness interviews with their friends and neighbours.

These interviews take from 40 minutes to an hour and include advice on ‘no-cost’ energy saving measures. We expect them to carry out more than 300 interviews before the end of March 2011. We expect these interviews to bring about some behaviour change, possibly amounting to up to 5% annual savings. If correct, the savings from this would amount to about 300 × 0.05 × 6 = 90  tCO₂e.

We therefore estimate that emissions savings arising directly from the energy audit project amount to about 432 + 90 = 522 tCO₂e/year to date.

In addition, the energy audit team has supported the running of the BeGreen, drop-in energy advice shop which has provided advice to several hundred more clients who have, for various reasons, not wanted or required a full audit. The work of the BeGreen project has included promotion of two ‘Hotspot’ insulation campaigns with 627 referrals for cavity wall and/or loft top-ups, converting to about 240 installations. The Energy Saving Scotland Advice Centre estimates that about 246tCO2e/year emission savings have resulted from referrals from the BeGreen project over the past two years.

The BeGreen project also administers a community benefit fund from a local wind farm which gives grants for energy efficiency measures to people in receipt of a qualifying benefit and to those aged 65+, according to recommendations made by the energy audit team. Further details of these grants and the measures they have funded are contained in the annexes.