The next energy group meeting will be on Monday 6 September at 7.30pm in Collessie. Please come along and find out more about our projects.

The Energy Group have been working away to help householders put in place energy saving measures recommended in our toolkit. The insulation and draughtproofing surveys are nearly complete and we have applied to a private trust for a grant to subsidise the cost. We will therefore be writing to households that have been surveyed in the next 2-3 weeks to confirm what their cost would be. Cupar based Reed Insulation have already made a start on installing cavity wall insulation for those who have taken advantage of the special offer secured by the NHTT.

We are also looking at how we can take forward our Community Renewables and Village Hall Exemplar projects. If you would like to find out more or get involved then please come along to our next meeting on Monday 6 September in Collessie Hall.

While promoting our Toolkit of energy saving measures for the CaRB Project there have been a number of people express interest in wood burning stoves.  Installing a wood burning stove can help cut winter fuel bills and reduce carbon emissions.  There is a lot of choice though, and they won’t suit every home, so we were wondering how we could best assist the households that are interested.

You may have already installed one, or decided it is not the right thing. On the other hand you may be wondering what kind would be best, who could install it, how much it all would cost and where to get fuel from.

We thought that if enough people would appreciate some help on these sorts of questions, we could organise a short event one Saturday in one of the village halls. We would get a few good local suppliers to bring along information and some stoves, have information about fuel and flues.

We would only want to do this if there was enough interest, otherwise, we could simply recommend reputable local firms who could supply and install stoves and wood fuel.

While you may not have expressed interest we would like to find out how many people out there would be interested in such an event.  If you would then please get in touch with Louise.

The Energy Group will be meeting on Monday 2 August in Giffordtown Hall at 7.30pm. All welcome.

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Sunday’s Collessie Gala was a great success and well attended. Our Stall was kept busy throughout the warm and sunny afternoon.  Neil shared some hand made bread to give people a taste of what a community bakery might offer.All agreed that the bread was delicous and we would like some more. More information about this project will follow soon and minutes of the sub groups last meeting are now available on the Food Group page.

Neil and Barbara's hand made bread

At the other end of the table we had a free tombola with the energy saving toolkit cupcakes proving popular with all.  Along with the cakes we were giving away energy saving bulbs, powerdown switches, tripsharefife merchandise  and the star prizes were 4 solar powered toys.

NHTT Gala Day Gallery

Collessie Gala will be taking place this coming Sunday, 20 June, from 2-4pm. On offer will be the usual great family fun, stalls and BBQ.Donations of plants, books or home baking would be most welcome.  Please drop them off with one of the Collessie Hall Committee or bring them along on the day.  All the proceeds go to the upkeep of the Collessie Hall.

The NHTT will be taking a stall this year where there will be a free tombola. Prizes will include solar toys, ‘low carb’ cupcakes and, in case you’ve missed them in the survey, some energy saving bulbs as well as other goodies. We will also have some samples of home baked bread on offer to give locals a taste of what might be on offer at a community bakery. If you have any excess produce then feel free to bring and barter.

It should be a great fun afternoon so see you there!

After the launch of the ‘Toolkit’ we have had a good response from those households interested in taking steps to improve their homes energy efficiency.

The team are now engaged in trying to get good discount deals with companies, for all the interventions you said you wanted. Some are easier than others.

Loft insulation proved popular and we have a local company involved with that.

Draught-proofing also, this time we have a national company offering good discount because we have large numbers signed up.

We received interest for all the forty measures we had highlighted in the Toolkit, which shows that folk are really thinking about how they can improve their energy efficiency.

So if you are reading this and have not registered your interest in any improvements, contact us immediately and we may be able to get you in on many of the great energy improvement offers.

Back around Xmas time we launched our Smart Monitor project, we now have some early results from collecting all your data. It seems that the average daily usage is 16.7kWh or 16 units per day. This is greater than the national average and may represent the use of electric heating over the cold winter and a number of bigger properties.

As part of this project we would like to hear your stories if you have changed your energy usage since the start of this project. Some of you have offered us valuable insights into how you have cut your energy use.

The Smart monitor project will continue till Mar 2011, so if you want to have a long term loan or have not yet received yours contact us.

We have taken on some complex case studies of several of local homes that we hope may provide us with future models for how to make real cost effective improvements. One of the projects is to provide a combined biomass heating system for a terrace of four cottages. These case studies are still at an early stage but show great opportunity for saving both money and carbon for the residents. We will update you on our progress.

On a national level, the Feed In Tariff (FIT), should prove to be a driver for the introduction of more Renewable energy as the government will now pay a hansom rate for your generated electricity, there is also a Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) which pays for heat generated. With guaranteed payment periods of 15 years there is now little reason for not acting. If you would like more information contact us.

The North Howe Transition Toun were selected to be featured in one of a series of 4 films commissioned by the Energy Saving Trust. Our film was focusing on community engagement and was filmed during our Letham Toolkit launch event. It features some faces and places you may find familiar:

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Working with Local Councils – a Transition Ingredient.

As some of you may be aware of, over the last few months I have been working in my academic capacity with Fife Council and Fife Community groups as well as Academic Partners to engage in a dialogue on carbon reduction and climate change.  Forging connection between local authorities and local community groups is – as you may remember – an ingredient of the Transition Towns Model.  So far we have held three seminars: one on Transport, one on Energy and one on Food. The atmosphere at these events has been vibrant and the feedback from participants is that this is proving to be an effective way to break down some of the barriers and pre-conceptions that might get in the way of the council and community interface.

Councillors and Community representative at an Open Space event in Letham Village Hall during the Nourishing Communities seminar.

To give some highlights:

At the Energy seminar in Levenmouth we had about 50 people. Tom Morton gave an excellent talk about the work going on in North Howe after which we heard about the Newburgh wind farm proposals from Neil Anderson and we heard from Fife council how they are strategically an pragmatically addressing energy efficiency.  After lunch we learned about the achievements of the Levenmouth Community Initiative – CLEAR. continue reading…