Award-winning papers in 2010 Free

District heating schemes are rare in the UK. Incineration of municipal waste has become controversial despite it being common practice in much of Europe where it is seen as good environmental practice. Currently in the UK many waste to energy recovery plants are being developed which use complex technologies that avoid the word ‘incineration’. Many produce only electricity, dumping most of the potential energy as heat. Heat is about 50% of the UK energy demand. Without most of this being met by sustainable sources such as energy recovery plants, the UK will not meet its ambitious carbon reduction commitments. Energy recovery plants have the potential to be the main catalyst to establish district heating networks in the UK. Once the networks are established other heat sources from power stations, industry and renewable sources can join in. The scheme at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, UK, has been operating for 10 years and has been so successful that new heat sources are required if it is to go forward and eventually serve the whole town. The study looks at how the scheme was conceived, sold to the customers, developed and how it is likely to expand further.

The Baker Medal was awarded to: Staffell I, Baker P, Barton JP et al. (2010) UK microgeneration. Part II: technology overviews. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers – Energy 163(4): 143–165, http://dx.doi.org/10.1680/ener.2010.163.4.143.

This paper reviews the current status of microgeneration technologies at the domestic scale. Overviews are given for nine such technologies, grouped into three sections: (a) low carbon heating: condensing boilers, biomass boilers and room heaters, air source and ground source heat pumps; (b)renewables: solar photovoltaic panels, flat plate and evacuated tube solar thermal panels and micro-wind; and (c) combined heat and power: Stirling engines, internal combustion engines and fuel cells. Reviews of the construction, operation and performance are given for the leading commercial products of each technology. Wherever possible, data are presented from the field, giving the actual prices paid by customers, efficiencies and energy yields experienced in real-world use, reliability and durability, and the problems faced by users. This information has a UK focus but is generally relevant in the international context. Two issues are found to be prevalent throughout the microgeneration industry. Total installed costs are a premium and vary substantially between technologies, between specific products (e.g. different models of solar panel), and between individual installations. Performance in the field is found in many cases to differ widely from manufacturers’ quotes and laboratory studies, often owing to installation and operational problems. Despite this, microgeneration has demonstrated substantial improvements over conventional generation in terms of fossil fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and energy cost, provided that the appropriate technologies are employed, being installed and operated correctly according to the load requirements of the house and their physical location.