Low Carbon Oxford Projects
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OxCO2 (A partnership approach to reducing carbon emissions across the city of Oxford)
The OxCO2 project is developing a structured and sustainable approach to community action on climate change across the City of Oxford. The project is funding the development of city-wide social enterprises, a low carbon communities toolkit and 3 pilot communities.
Building on the innovative approaches to community-led action on low carbon already developed in Oxford City, a suite of mentoring and training packages are being developed to support new low carbon communities to get going. The replication of this approach will be tested in 3 communities across Oxford: Low Carbon Oxford North, an affluent community already active; Barton, a deprived community with no activity; and Low Carbon South Oxford, a mixed community struggling to get going.
Around 20% of the City will be covered in the pilot programme. After September 2011, the social enterprise will roll out the approach across the rest of the City and the County. We expect this project to set in motion an approach to low carbon transformation that will be self-sustaining until at least 2050.
The organisations involved in OxCO2 are:
Low Carbon Hub
For more information on community groups in Oxfordshire and to get support for your community group visit the Low Carbon Hub website.
You can also sign up to receive the fortnightly ebulletin, The Key, from the Low Carbon Hub website which contains all the latest news, and information on up-coming events, funding and jobs.
Green Deal Dialogue
Planned for implementation in autumn 2012, the Green Deal is a government framework which is set to revolutionise the energy efficiency of British properties. The Green Deal framework will enable private firms to offer consumers energy efficiency improvements to their homes, community spaces and businesses at no upfront cost, and recoup payments through a charge in instalments on the energy bill.
At a local level, the Green Deal will enable many households and businesses to improve the energy efficiency of their properties without consuming so much energy and wasting so much money. This part of the Low Carbon Oxford will be concerned with how the Green Deal will work in Oxford and understanding how we can prepare to get the most out of the Green Deal for businesses and homeowners in Oxford.
An initial collaborative workshop on the Green Deal was held in May 2011. You can read about the discussion and results of this workshop in the document below:
Feedback from Green Deal Workshop - May 2011 (62kB PDF)
For up-to-date information on the government's Green Deal visit the Department of Energy and Climate Change website.
OxFood
OxFood is a sustainable local food project all about community access to local food in and around Oxford.
As well as becoming a hub of information, OxFood hopes to encourage discussion on the most important questions surrounding local food in the 21st Century. The objective is that the shared subject of food can provide a forum to help jointly explore some of the environmental challenges we face and how we can act as individuals and communities to build a sustainable future.
OxFood strongly believes that local food should be accessible to all and that the best way of achieving that is for us all to share our knowledge and ideas. OxFood will actively research viable business or social enterprise models within the Oxfordshire local food network.
Find out more about the project on the OxFood website or follow @OxFood on Twitter.
Local Food Survey
OxFood, as part of Oxford City Council's Low Carbon Oxford programme launched an online consultation around attitudes to local food in Oxfordshire which closed in September 2011..
The results are available on our Consultation pages.
Outline Business Cases for Renewables
Investment in renewable energy will be essential in ensuring sustainable energy supplies now and in the future. The objective of this City Council project in conjunction with Local Partnerships - funded by DECC under their Local Carbon Frameworks pilot - is to develop outline business cases for renewable technologies such as photovoltaic and biomass; including options appraisal, financial modelling and legal/commercial advice for renewables procurement.
The government's fiscal instruments of Feed In Tariff and Renewable Heat Incentive mean that there is now a potential financial return - as well as a carbon return - from deploying these technologies. The learning from this project is being shared with other public sector and Low Carbon Oxford partners in Oxford to encourage action to take-up these technologies locally and reduce carbon emissions toward the target 40% by 2020.
As part of this project a workshop was held in May 2011 at Unipart to share learning about how feed-in tariffs could work for some of our partners. The presentation from Alan Sadler of Local Partnerships can be downloaded below:
Low Carbon Oxford Presentation - May 2011 (771kB PDF)
Distributed Renewable Energy Generation - Smart Grid
Distributed generation is electricity generation which is very close to the final point of consumption which therefore doesn't require long distance transmission.
Distributed generation has been enabled by renewable energy technologies such as photovoltaic (solar panels) which have potential for implementation in a range of sizes in the Oxford area and would provide high potential for carbon reduction.
Low Carbon Oxford Pathfinders have expressed a keen interest in collaborating on the development of a Smart Grid to distribute renewable energy in Oxford.
Energy Efficiency Forum
Led by MINI Plant Oxford, the Energy Efficiency Forum is a sharing of ideas between leading energy and carbon managers from private and public sectors.
This meeting of minds is all about sharing best practice and ideas in terms of technology and people engagement.
Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Network
With the increasing
popularity of electric vehicles and a widening number of options
available to buyers there is an opportunity for improving and promoting
the EV sharing infrastructure across Oxford; installing renewable
energy powered fast-charging points (e.g. charging points powered by
solar PV) which would make fuelling EVs carbon neutral.
Several
Pathfinders have expressed an interest in developing the EV charging
network, which would further encourage businesses in Oxford to consider
having electric vehicles in their fleet.
Currently in Oxford EV
charging points are available at several Oxford City Council car parks
and Oxfordshire County Council Park & Ride sites, which are listed below:
- Westgate car park
- Worcester Street car park
- St Clements car park
- Headington car park
- Union Street car park
- Summertown car park
- Thornhill park & ride
- Seacourt park & ride
- Redbridge park & ride
- Peartree park & ride
There is a charge of £50 for a tag which gives you access to all the charging points in Oxford, Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Hillingdon for 12 months.
Full details can be found on the
Chargemaster website.
Smart Parking
Several Pathfinders have shown interest in
collaborating on a Smart Parking scheme in Oxford.
Smart Parking is
essentially a system with differential charging for parking based on
carbon emissions; drivers of high emissions vehicles paying a higher
rate to park, therefore incentivising use of low emissions vehicles.
A carbon emissions-based parking system would be a constant reminder to
users of the negative impact of high emission vehicles and incentive to
switch over to lower emissions technologies.
Transport Link for the Eastern Arc of Oxford
One of the
potential projects identified by Pathfinders is the improvement of the
public transport links around the Lye Valley and Cowley Marsh areas of
Oxford, which are currently poor.
These Eastern areas of Oxford host
several large commercial and industrial areas employing thousands of
staff who commute from various parts of the City as well as from
outside of Oxford.
Expanding and modifying existing bus routes or
introducing new ones that meet the needs to commuters around the
Eastern Arc would mean decreased reliance on car transport and lower
carbon emissions.
Page last reviewed 6 June 2011
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