The Energy Group is made up of TB Members with a particular interest in reducing our carbon footprint, at domestic and community level, by:

• reducing the consumption of fossil fuel through insulation or efficiency measures
• deploying renewable energy to generate clean electricity

Its Home Visits Team offers energy saving advice and surveys, and is available to anyone who wants to lower their carbon footprint, or discuss their ideas.

Home visits

We respond only to referrals and requests via this website or the TB Newsletter using info@transitionbelper.org. This is a voluntary service with no fixed fee, but donations to Transition Belper are always very welcome.

During 2022 we responded to 33 requests  – a big increase on previous years.  Since mid-2022 Tony Cooper has been joined by Chris Ring and Alan Hutchinson, who will be conducting visits in 2023.  

What’s Involved? A home visit covers some but not usually all of the following:

• What are the homeowners main concerns and what improvements have been carried out, are planned or at the ideas stage? Is there a budget for making improvements ?
• Discuss the structure of the building and its built-in ‘heat leakiness’. What insulation measures might be practical and cost-effective?
• Use of thermal imaging to discover or confirm heat loss areas
• Understand current/recent energy consumption – using any available usage history.
• Discuss opportunities to monitor usage of appliances and identify heaviest energy consumers. What changes in usage could be made to reduce consumption significantly? We can lend energy meters  for monitoring electrricity usage of appliances as appropriate
• What is the potential for generating renewable energy (e.g. solar panels) and what would the costs and benefits be?

Please Note that we are not professionals and do not carry out improvement work. We are fairly knowledgeable consumers with a certain amount of training and knowledge which we are happy to share, but any proposed improvement plans arising from these visits should be checked out with professional installers.

Community Buildings

St John’s Chapel – During November/December 2019, with the help of council staff, an audit of heat loss and energy usage was carried out for Belper Town Council.  We reported back in January with recommendations for Carbon Footprint reduction.

If you are involved with running a community building and would like help in energy saving, please contact us.

TB’s Solar Power Trailer for Hire in 2023

Find out all about the trailer and how you can borrow it for you event here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Community Energy project launched

Since ADVyCE’s Ambergate Hydro Project (a TB Community Energy spin-off) was shelved in 2015, there has been nothing to replace it.   TB is now giving support to a new project to establish Belper Community Energy,  which aims to install rooftop solar PV on suitable commercial and community buildings in and around Belper, and accelerate the reduction in Belper’s carbon footprint..

Since all Feed-in Tariff subsidies were removed in 2019, it’s now a lot harder to put together a business case which would attract either the owner of a potential host site or ethical investors. Recent increases in both price and instability of enegy supply have thrown up new opportunities .

Following 2022’s Belper Goes Green, Belper Community Energy was formed with direct support from Belper Town Council and Transition Belper, as well as Belper residents with a keen interest in actually implementing renewable energy schemes. In early 2023 it plans to become a Community Benefit Society  (independent of TB) and will work with rooftop solar specialists to present business propositions to interested site owners.   We hope some of these opportunities may be realised in 2023.

Get Involved

Tony Cooper (who leads this group) would like to hear from anyone who’d like to reform the Energy Group so that it can increase its work of helping people to reduce their carbon footprint at the domestic and community level. If there is sufficient interest he will hold a launch meeting to discuss what can be offered and what can be accomplished in 2020.

If you want to join the Energy Group, please contact Tony Cooper at info@transitionbelper.org