Energy Audit and Solar Feasibility
We have taken some small steps in using less energy, but we need to focus now on the fabric of our buildings in order to more substantially reduce our energy use.
In 2021 we formed a small Eco group (CRISPAS) to help us move forward and earlier this year we received a grant from London Community Energy Fund (LCEF) to do an Energy Audit of the buildings and explore the feasibility of creating solar energy on our roof.
The recommendations in the reports give us a blueprint to follow for our next steps. The key recommendations for all the buildings are the same. We will save most energy through roof and wall insulation, de-stratification (i.e. moving warm air from the ceiling to the ground) Smart heating controls and installing LED lights. We intend to do work first on the Halls, as these have more use than the other buildings and therefore more carbon/energy can be saved.
Energy Cafes
We are aware that many people are currently struggling with energy bills, and that we are often unaware of ways we can save energy in our homes. In response to that, as part of the grant, we also trained a group of volunteer “Energy Champions” to run energy saving advice sessions called “Energy Cafes”. We invited Vines user groups and people from the wider community to take part in the training. The group of trained volunteers now runs fortnightly Energy Cafes in Ilford library on Saturdays from 2pm-3-45pm. At the cafe people can find out about how they can take simple actions to make their home more energy efficient and learn about financial help they may be eligible to get with energy bills.
Transition Town Ilford is now supporting this project.
As part of the funding we received we also ran an Eco Action event on Sept 17 in Vine Church Halls with members of the East London group of URC churches. We gave a talk about our experiences so far, and later did a short practical DIY session on simple ways to save energy in our homes and community/faith buildings.
This looks like a tremendous initiative – nice work!