Matt's Really useful file

97. Since the early 1990s, long before the introduction of PPS 22 and the Merton rule, Woking Borough Council has been at the forefront of developing local energy systems. Under the policy pioneered by Mr Allan Jones MBE, Woking has incrementally expanded its local energy capacity over the past 15 years, funding growth of that capacity by re-investing money saved through its energy efficiency projects. Since 1999, local energy development in the town has been taken forward by Thameswey Energy Ltd (TEL)—a public/private joint venture energy service company, wholly owned by the council, allowing it to operate outside the capital controls of local government. TEL provides local energy, including cooling, heat and electricity to all Woking's institutional, commercial and residential customers.[152] In 2002, Woking was the first local authority to adopt a comprehensive Climate Change Strategy, aimed at meeting the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's target of a 60% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.[153] The town has now built up a network of over 60 local generators, including cogeneration and trigeneration units, photovoltaic arrays and the UK's first hydrogen fuel cell station.[154] In so doing, the council has reduced its own carbon dioxide emissions by around 77% and those of the borough as a whole by 17%. Importantly, it has achieved this using its own funds, without financial support from central Government.

98. One of the key features of the Woking example is that its energy system runs on a local private wire network. This is where a single party runs its own network off the licensed distribution network, allowing a certain amount of unlicensed generation and supply to take place outside the main electricity market.[155] In the case of Woking, Thameswey Ltd runs the private wire network, providing connections for the whole town. Under this set-up, because the operator is unlicensed, it is able to avoid costs such as the Renewables Obligation, Climate Change Levy and the Energy Efficiency Commitment. This helps promote the financial viability of the more expensive low-carbon energy sources used in Woking. There are disadvantages, however, to the use of private wire networks. Customers are not protected in the same way as those supplied by licensed energy companies, and cannot easily switch energy supplier. These networks are also still dependent on the external public networks for backup power, when necessary.[156] Nevertheless, there is increasing support for the use of private wire networks and these are a key feature of future plans for energy supply in London.