CDC have received a planning application for an ‘Urban Reserve’ microgeneration scheme in Quarry Lane. The scheme proposes a plant that will be used to produce electricity only during hours of peak demand. Producing electricity locally causes less wastage en route, but it is very disappointing that the proposal is for a fossil fuel (gas) powered scheme. Surely this is a retrograde step, given the Council’s declared efforts to become carbon neutral? A better solution to the peak power issue would be to have a battery that could charge up when the electricity is cheap, typically when there is a significant amount of renewable electricity, and then have energy available during hours of peak demand. This would be a much less carbon intensive supplement to the base power supply, moving in the right direction for carbon neutrality of the power grid.
If you would like to have your say on this proposal, please comment before 12 February via DCPlanning@chichester.gov.uk
If you’d like to get into the technicalities more, this website (https://carbonintensity.org.uk/) records and forecasts the carbon intensity of UK generation, and this parliamentary answer gives details of the carbon intensity of differing sources of power generation https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2015-11-26/17799/.