The UK energy infrastructure is pulling on local resources to balance demand – progress is slow, but it is happening.
On the side streets of Bacup, Lancashire, UK, in two-up two-downs nestled around a former mill, work began in January to convert the first properties as part of a new project. It could be indicative of methods to bring low-cost green heating to millions of homes that otherwise seem to be locked out of the planned transition to net zero.
Rossendale Valley Energy’s Net Zero Terrace Streets (NZTS) project is an attempt to find a way to fit often bulky heat pumps in homes with little free space. A householder in a more suburban setting is more likely to be able to live the net zero ‘Good Life’, in an echo of the suburban self-sufficiency enthusiasts at the centre of the sitcom that first aired on the BBC 50 years ago. But even they might have trouble with some of it. At about 1.5 times the size of an average suburban English garden, Tom and Barbara’s was not only unfeasibly...