Energy World March 2017

We're using the term ‘urban energy’ to describe the main focus of this month’s issue – to cover the production of and use of energy within towns and cities through decentralised power (and heat) generation and district energy systems, following last month’s emphasis on local renewables.

So, starting with a piece from Arup on the considerable role that cities could play to meet global carbon reduction targets, we move on to a description of groundbreaking work being carried out at Swansea University on buildings that are net energy positive – ie buildings that are effectively mini power stations.

Two articles explore aspects of district energy systems; one on the use of ‘secondary’ sources of heat together with large-scale heat pumps; the other on the advantages of community ownership of district heating schemes. One more article looks at the broken journey towards zero carbon homes – and how it could be restarted.

We move on to a piece from Marc Height that considers why the UK has so far failed to make significant progress towards full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects – and how this might be fixed.

Finally, Marc's column, renamed last look, has moved to the last page – see page 36.