As part of our efforts to improve the amount of information on renewable energy available to Moorlanders, Moorlands Climate Action has created an online map of projects in our district. It lists them by type and whether they are operational, approved (or refused). It doesn't yet list new applications and it still has a few gaps but it IS the first of its kind.

Meet Archie, the central character in an inspiring example of community energy next door to the Moorlands. Archie is an Archimedes screw, installed by Congleton Hydro Community Energy to generate electrical energy from the potential energy of water flowing down from the top of Havannah Weir on the River Dane.  Now successfully established, the Community project has recently secured the necessary funding for their sister Solar Community project and are forging a promising future with the production of low carbon energy for schools and local businesses. 

Even before the establishment of MCA, some of our future members were gazing admiringly across the county boundary at Congleton's intrepid first steps.  They were of course blessed with a suitable water potential but we naively thought that if they had water we were well placed for wind.  How wrong we were! At that time the government was opposed to onshore wind, as were many local politicians, so we put the idea on the back burner - to coin a hopefully antediluvian phrase. 

Read more: Community Energy in the Moorlands?

Decarbonising the heat needed in the tightly packed streets of Biddulph, Cheadle and Leek is a wicked problem, so far without a cost-effective solution. Hydrogen for homes has gone firmly out of fashion, despite new gas boilers being ready to take a blended mix. Air source heat pumps just don’t seem to fit in terraces that face directly onto the street and often have small courtyards out back.

But there are signs that another alternative may be on its way. Late last year, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) released a consultation on Heat Network Zoning, where suitable areas of domestic and commercial buildings are grouped together to take low carbon heat from a central source. Community Energy England and partners are looking to push out a model being developed in Rossendale, Lancashire, called Net Zero Terrace Streets. This model covers some of the same territory as heat zoning but is community-centred.

Read more: Heat Network Zoning for Moorlands Towns?

We're pleased to be progressing with the 'soft' launch of our thermal camera, kindly funded by Leek Building Society. We're also delighted to hear that SMDC is planning something similar, although we have no details of their plans at this stage.

Having consulted with other providers of thermal imaging services (many thanks to Cambridge Carbon Footprint and Cumbria Action for Sustainability, who have both provided invaluable advice), we think our best model is to lend the camera to individuals to do their own informal home surveys, along with guidelines provided by us and pointers to free training courses. We stress of course that this will NOT be a professional service, just a tool to let homeowners get a rough idea of what might be necessary and we strongly recommend that users seek professional advice before embarking on disruptive or expensive improvements.

Read more: Trialling Our Thermal Camera

This poster reflects the experience of an owner survey. At this stage the Energy Group is still building up expertise and experience, so we do not claim at present that these interpretations are completely accurate and we have been advised that there are potential pitfalls in interpretation. However, the examples provide a taster of what is possible to identify likely sources of heat loss. We strongly recommend that no one takes on expensive remedial work without advice from a professional.

For this reason, we recommend that anyone who borrows our camera consults the recommended interpretation guidelines that come with it and, better still, attends a course on interpretation. We can direct you to one of these when you register to borrow the camera.

Registration Link

With the thermometer dropping, we’re all thinking of how to stay warm this winter, while avoiding too much cost and trying to keep our climate footprints low. Easier said than done.

There was a lot of interest at our Energy Day in March, but the reality for many of us who live in old houses is that insulating them to be heat pump ready has a lot of pitfalls. Can we be confident that any work done will avoid the horrors of ‘thermal bridges’ or ‘vapour barriers’ in the wrong place?

It would be nice to know that government was focussing on training large numbers of builders to be accredited in retrofit but so far we’ve been unable to find any in the Moorlands. However, we are aware that some of our members have had work done on their houses or done it themselves, so wonder if setting up a forum to share experiences would be valuable. Do let us know what you think via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

In the meantime, we may be able to focus on piecemeal actions...

Read more: Winter Warming