There’s a nice little multimedia demonstration on the Greenpeace website at the moment called EfficienCity. This virtual town is a demonstration into how communities across the UK are using decentralised energy as a means to reduce their carbon emissions and produce cheaper and more secure energy supplies.
Taking a look around EfficienCity, there’s lots of video demonstrations, animations and slide shows which demonstrate how localised efficient energy systems work. Local Hospitals, Leisure Centres and Breweries for example meet their own heating, cooling and electricity needs through the use of CHP (Combined Heat and Power) systems and feed back any excess into the local community. There are explanations and examples of localised Biomass Plants and CHP Plants in operation as well as video demonstrations on tidal, wind and wave power.
This virtual world is not too far from reality in the UK though as cities including Manchester, Eastleigh, Southampton, Woking and Birmingham are all currently pursuing decentralised energy schemes. For more information on decentralised power including an explanation of CHP, take a look on the Greenpeace website which gives a good insight into how it all works and also points out how decentralised energy could meet the UK’s energy needs much better than the planned 10 new Nuclear reactors the government recently gave the go-ahead for.
Watch out for the virtual seagulls though, they make my ears hurt…..
